Railroad! Collection 1 (The Three Volume Omnibus)

by Tonia Brown

  Dodger snorted and looked again to Boon for help. “Are you telling me they don’t lure men out here to the middle of the desert and kill them for their blood?”

  “Not quite,” Boon said. “They take life from their clientele, true, but only enough to survive. In exchange the men who willingly allow them access get … well …” The spirit grinned, unable to finish the thought. If he had any blood to blush with, Dodger supposed the ghost would’ve turned a fine shade of pink.

  “They get a night they won’t soon forget,” Rebecca said. “My girls have had many, many years to hone their talents. They are the best at what they do. The very best. Is it so much to ask a little life in exchange for such boundless pleasure?”

  “It that’s true,” Dodger said, “then why aren’t you overrun with these so called clients? I don’t know a man alive that wouldn’t let you drain him dry if you’re as good as you say you are.”

  “A man can easily forget other things when their memory is crowded with such delights.” She waggled the gun belt at him.

  But Dodger wasn’t fooled by her double talk. “You mean you make them forget.” He snatched the belt and proceeded to buckle it in place. As soon as the belt settled on his hips, he felt a little safer; though he didn’t know how much good the guns would do against the supernatural being.

  “We prefer to think of it as giving them other things to remember. Better things. We leave just enough hints behind to lead others brave souls to us, but not enough to reveal our home to unworthy eyes.”

  “Just who do you consider worthy?”

  “Anyone in need of our special touch. The lonely and dejected. The outcast. The heartbroken. Those willing to give anything to feel loved, even if for one night. I would wager that even you have probably heard of us? The great Rodger Dodger is sure to have been around the block a few times? Yes? Enough to pick up on certain rumors?”

  The Desert Rose.

  Dodger remembered now. Tales of a brothel so hot it left a man soaked just thinking about it. Women so beautiful you would willingly lay your life down just to lay with one of them. A meal of flesh so satisfying a man would pay whatever price asked for the privilege of a taste. Trouble was, no one knew where they place was located. Even those who had claimed to visit couldn’t quite remember where they had been at the time. But the rumors persisted, and the mirage flickered hot and scrumptious in the burning mind of every lonely man across the west.

  And yes, in his past life Dodger set out for the place at least once. Maybe twice. But business always came before pleasure. How many times had he willingly bled for some nameless boss? No one ever offered him a night to remember. The most he got from a job was a head full of nightmares he’d rather forget.

  “This is quite a setup you have,” Dodger said, trying to shift the conversation away from himself. “How long you been at this?”

  “Here?” she asked. “Long enough to know it’s probably time to move along. America is expanding, and there is no place for us in this new world. Soon there will be nowhere for us to go.”

  “What will you do then?”

  She didn’t answer, and Dodger reckoned he was pretty glad about that.

  “I hate to seem obtuse,” Boon said. “But we are here for a reason, and time is growing short.”

  “Oh yes,” Rebecca said. “Your strange men are in need of our help. Help we would love to give, except …”

  Dodger waited for the pause to pass, but it didn’t look like she was going to elaborate without a prompt. “Except?”

  “We have the most unfortunate troubles of our own.” Rebecca flounced—not walked or strolled or stepped, she full bodily flounced—across the parlor and draped herself over the arm of a couch. There she crossed her legs, showing a heaping helping of thigh in the process, and pushed her chest out as far as her physique would allow for without breaking her spine. Her posture was somewhere between erotic and demure, much like a clueless virgin trying to seduce her husband on their wedding night.

  And funny enough, it was just the kind of innocent seduction Dodger loved.

  “I just don’t see how I can focus on what you need when I have so much worry on my delicate mind.” Rebecca pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead and sighed. “Worry that I’m sure the legendary gunslinger Rodger Dodger could handle with ease.”

  “Knock it off,” Dodger said.

  She placed a hand across the swell of her cleavage and dropped her mouth open, just a bit, in attitude of fake shock. “Why, sir? Whatevah do you mean?”

  Dodger was pretty surprised himself that her naive sex kitten act wasn’t melting his pants right off his horny ass. He wasn’t sure if his near death experience had inoculated him against her charm, or if it was the presence of the ghost, or a little bit of both. Whatever it was, the sight of her lolling about on the arm of the couch with her breasts pushed forward and her lips set in a pretty pout did not fill him with the urge to do her bidding.

  It filled him with the urge to run away as fast as he could before she could attack again.

  “What do you want?” Dodger asked.

  “Why would you assume I want something?” she asked.

  “Because you’re showing us enough landscape to plant a crop of wheat on. Now what do you want?”

  She fluttered her eyelashes and heaved her bosom. “I can’t ask a big, strong, handsome man like you to-”

  “Just tell us,” Dodger said. “So we can get out of here.”

  “Come on, Becky,” Boon said. “You ain’t foolin’ either of us with that routine. Just name your price and we can be on our way.”

  She sat upright and smoothed down her thin gown. “Death has changed you, Boon. You used to be all kinds of fun.”

  “I did not!” Boon turned to Dodger. “I did not. She’s just saying that. Ched likes that kind of fun, not me.”

  Dodger stomach churned at the visual of such a suggestion. “Bringing Ched into this isn’t making it any better.”

  Boon didn’t seem to hear him. “I mean sure, I like to have fun. But with the right kind of gal. You know … a certain kind of gal.”

  “You mean a living woman,” Rebecca said. “Which is kind of ironic now, isn’t it?”

  The ghost grinned wide and goofy. “Yeah. I reckon so. Me being dead and you being-”

  “Wait up,” Dodger said. “What is this dead business? I thought you said you weren’t a vampire.”

  “No,” Rebecca said. “I said we didn’t like that name.”

  “So you are vampires?”

  Rebecca thought about this before she said, “I think you should save that question for Hieronymus. He has all manner of theories about us. I’m sure he would be willing to share them with you.”

  Dodger got the impression that she was done talking about the subject. Had she been a he, Dodger would have pressed harder for more information, vampire or not. But again, his experience with women forbade him this gratification. Not that he had an especially deep respect for the fairer sex. He just knew once a woman set her mind to being done with something she was as apt to change it as a eunuch was to grow a new pair of family jewels.

  Boon cleared his throat, producing an awkward sound from the ghost. “Back to the matter at hand. Dodger did bring a full payment, with a little extra for bugging you gals so soon since the last time.”

  “As much as I love money,” Rebecca said, “I’m afraid it isn’t as simple as a financial transaction. I said we had problems of our own, and I meant it.”

  “What kind of problems?” Dodger said.

  A look of genuine concern came over her. “The kind that needs killing.”

  ****

  back to top

  ****

  Chapter Eight

  Give and Take

  In which Dodger comes to a bloody accord.

  “Becky?” Boon asked. “What is going on?”

  The vampire’s mood changed so suddenly that even Dodger felt a pang of sympathy for her. She stared hard at
the ghost and asked, “Do you remember Gladys?”

  “The new girl?” Boon asked. “The little brunette with a foreign accent?”

  Rebecca nodded. “One of our contacts in New York rescued her from the streets and sent her to us. We took her in on good faith, bound her to our vows, and taught her our ways. She showed promise, but she betrayed us, Wash. She wasn’t just a lost fledgling. At her cold undead heart she was a Jackal.”

  “Oh dear.”

  “I know. Surprised us too. Trouble is, we didn’t find out for nearly a fortnight. Meanwhile the clients she wasn’t outright killing, she turned and hid in the pit.”

  “Dear God in heaven,” Boon whispered.

  “I don’t know how it got past us. I trained her myself, and Dot kept watch on her as close as she could. We’ve just been so busy with all these frontiersmen. And the rise in tourists is threatening to close us for good. I just assumed she-”

  “I’m afraid I’m a bit lost,” Dodger said over her.

  Rebecca gave a little impatient huff. “What is it now?”

  “Well, I don’t think the jackal I’m thinking is the jackal you’re all talking about.”

  “Give him a break, Becky,” Boon said. “He ain’t never dealt with the likes of you before.”

  “I can see that much,” Rebecca said. She looked away and muttered just loud enough for Dodger to hear, “I just hate dealing with new people.”

  “You’d do best to get used to it,” Dodger said. “Because I plan on being around for a mighty long time.”

  She looked to him again, a faint trace of a smile belying her gruff attitude. “A Jackal is the most twisted of our kin. Their main goal is to consume, taking and taking but never giving. They will turn a normal human into one of us without considering the consequences, creating more and more until their numbers are out of control. They are animals at best, and monsters at worse.”

  “And you have just such a Jackal here.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. She is held captive in the abandoned mines this town was originally built around. When we discovered she was turning her clients into monsters like her, or just eating them whole, we tossed her into the darkness with the rest of her brood and sealed them inside.”

  “Why didn’t you just kill them and be done with it?”

  She blinked, as if unsure of why he would ask such a thing. “Because that would violate our vows, Mr. Dodger.”

  “Vows,” Dodger echoed. “Vampires take vows. You’re joking with me.”

  “I most certainly am not. While it is true that our condition requires us to feed off of the life force of others, some of us learned over the years that we don’t have to kill to survive. We can coexist with normal humans if we show restraint. We take vows promising to never bring harm to another. To never take an ounce of life without permission and always give something in return.”

  “Sounds like a noble endeavor,” Dodger said.

  “Thank you. The Elders—the most arrogant of our kin—despise us for this, and thus we are forsaken by our own kind. Hence your employer’s colorful name for us.”

  “He has a knack for naming things,” Boon said. “I’m always impressed by it.”

  “As am I,” Rebecca said, but she sounded anything but awed. “The Desert Rose is a sanctuary for those like us, those tired of killing to survive. We take them in and teach them a better way. They accept our vows of nonviolence and we promise to protect them from the persecution that plagues us from all sides.”

  Dodger smirked. “Kind of like a convent for bloodsuckers?”

  “Very amusing, though apropos.”

  “How deep do your vows run? Surely you’re allowed to protect yourself against attack.”

  “We are and we did by means of non-violence. Killing a human is abhorrent, but to kill one of our own kind? We just can’t. We sealed her away so she could bring no more harm to others, or us. But there in the darkness she and her brood suffer. And as they suffer, so do we.”

  “I see.” Dodger wondered, with all the talk before about throwing his carcass to the monsters in zee pit, just how much suffering was really going on here. He had a sneaking suspicion that perhaps she wasn’t telling him the whole story. Or rather, the whole truth. “I take it this is where I come in?”

  Rebecca dropped her gaze to the floor. “I hate to ask, but I’m at a loss for an alternative. We are at our wits end, Mr. Dodger. And we have heard much about your skill at handling … shall we say, problematic situations?”

  “You just assume I am willing to spill blood where your precious vows forbid it.”

  She raised her eyes to him again, surprise over taking her.

  “You’re wrong about your Elders,” Dodger said. “You’re just as conceited as they are.” He glanced to Boon, and found the ghost shaking his head in silence. Was his contempt for Dodger or the vampire? It was hard to read the spirit, so Dodger just let the idea go.

  Rebecca’s surprise faded into a cool calm again. “I’m sorry you feel that way, but those are my terms. Handle our problem and I will give you what you want.”

  Dodger considered this offer, unsure of the value because he had no idea what they were bargaining for. He wanted to ask, but reckoned he might weaken his bargaining power if he proved ignorant of the prize. “I will take care of your dirty business if you give the professor twice the amount he asking.”

  “Twice!” Boon and the vampire shouted in unison.

  “That’s right. Twice. I’ll do what you ask of me, only if you give us twice what we came for. And we keep the money too. Deal?”

  “Dodger,” Boon started. “I think that’s a bit much to ask-”

  Dodger lifted his hand, asking Boon’s silence, as well was support.

  Rebecca leaned against the couch again, regarding him with a cool stare. Though she did her best to conceal it, Dodger could sense the wild anger dancing behind her eyes. But she kept her unruffled façade, eyeing him as she weighed either his offer or the best way to kill him and be done with this whole affair.

  At length she said, “The rumors about you are true. You really do drive a hard bargain. I wonder if everything they say about you is true.” She gave him the once over, from head to toe and back again, licking her plump lips as she ended the sweep of her gaze at his groin.

  Or was it the guns she stared at so hard?

  No, it was his groin. He felt naked under her penetrating gaze, but resisted the urge to cover himself with his hands. Boon cut him a questioning glance, and with it Dodger knew his next bull session with the guys in the cab was going to be full of awkward questions and dirty suggestions.

  “I accept,” Rebecca said. “If you can manage to dispatch Gladys and her brood I would be glad to give you twice what you want. And yes, you can keep the money.”

  “Sound good to me. What about the mines. Do you have a map?”

  “No, but you won’t need one. The caverns are limited.”

  Which left the deed itself. Dodger hated to ask, but he needed to know. “Do the usual vampire remedies apply? Or is there some special way I have to kill her?”

  “Unless things aboard the Sleipnir have changed dramatically since Wash’s demise, then you’re well enough armed.”

  Dodger stared at the vampire, unsure what she meant.

  Your ammunition is silver tipped, Boon whispered.

  Raising an eyebrow at the news, Dodger tried not to act too surprised. “I suppose that settles that.” He removed his jacket and held it out to her. “If you can hang onto this, and point me in the right direction, we can get this over with.”

  The vampire snorted and snapped up his coat. “It’s good to see we aren’t only ones that get a little blood thirsty. You certainly live up to your name, Rodger Dodger.”

  And all at once Dodger regretted his enthusiasm.

  “Boon can show you the way to the mines,” Rebecca said as she settled onto a settee. “I need to gather my girls and explain the terms of our agreement. Do make haste. I’m sur
e we would both like to get this over before the sun rises so you can collect your payment and be on your way.”

  “Just one more thing,” Dodger said, rolling up his sleeves. “How many did you say there were?”

  “I didn’t. And truthfully, we aren’t sure. Could be as many as half a dozen, maybe more.” Rebecca slipped his jacket on in a move that was all seduction, whether she intended it or not. “But don’t worry, I’ll know if you’ve slain them all.”

  “How? Will you just somehow sense it?” Which Dodger wouldn’t put past her. After all, she was a vampire.

  “Nothing so dramatic. You see, once you go down there’s only one way you’ll come back out alive.” She flashed him some fang, and a good bit of cleavage, before she pulled his coat over her bosom and said, “Goodbye, Mr. Dodger.”

  Her farewell had an edge of finality to it that Dodger just didn’t care for. Rather than giving her the pleasure of a response, he followed Boon out of the parlor, through a low-lit hallway and back out onto the porch. No sooner had the door closed behind them then Boon gave a hoarse shout.

  “Great gravy, son!” he whispered fiercely. “What was all that about back there?”

  “What was what?” Dodger asked.

  “All that flirtin’ and fakin’ and flauntin’. I’ve never seen anyone handle Becky like that. Boy she was as mad as a hornet trapped in honey there at the end. Do you realize how close you came to ending up in that pit as a snack instead of a savior?”

  Dodger stopped on the bottom step and looked up to the spirit of the taller man. “What else was I supposed to do? You weren’t any help back there you know. One of us had to stand up for ourselves. Some partner you are.”

  “Well it was kind of hard for me to get a word in with you two playing verbal poker like that. It was all I could do to keep up! I’ll say it again, I have never seen Becky treated like that. I mean the way you spoke to her, much less make her back down from a full payment? And you got us twice what the doc asked for! How did you do that?”

  “It was nothing. I just bluffed her.” Dodger returned to his stroll. “Anyone can do it well if they know how. Stop making a big deal out of it and show me where this place is.”