The Cowboy and the Vampire: A Very Unusual Romance (The Cowboy and the Vampire Collection Book 1)

by Clark Hays

  Elita stood abruptly and started toward the door.

  “No,” said Julius, “I am not done with you.”

  Bowing to him, she returned to again warm her hands at the fireplace.

  He continued. “The Messianic bloodlines are central to our destiny. They are bloodlines given the right to rule by God, the chosen ones. Their numbers, of course, are quite limited, certainly in comparison to the numerous Reptilian vampires, who are in essence, our teeming masses. We have been rigorous in maintaining the purity of the Messianic lines and interbreeding between the Messianic bloodline and the Reptilian bloodline is strictly prohibited.”

  “Reptilians only breed with their own. Although,” he said, with a nod toward Elita, “that certainly does not prevent the sharing of sensual pleasures between the species, or even with Adamites. But procreation between humans and vampires is genetically impossible.”

  “Your world of cinema and fiction likes to pretend we can create a vampire simply by biting your fragile necks,” Julius said. “If this was true, Adamites would have long ago come under the rule of the vampire. I am the only one remaining with the power to turn. All the others of my line are now gone.” He smiled, like a child caught doing something bad. “The sun can be a mighty weapon when used correctly against your adversaries.”

  “There must be thousands, no, millions of possible Adamites, I mean humans, that you could turn, that have this power to be your queen,” I said. “Why pick me to be your mate?”

  “All you need to know is that you are critically important, to me personally as my chosen, and to the larger forces of our times. Many centuries ago, our world began to slowly disintegrate, infected, I fear, with the same apathy now plaguing humankind. While the various factions in no way rival my power, they exist and are unhappy. You and I are a symbol of reconciliation, and our union will transform our world.”

  “Maybe you should tell her about Lazarus,” Elita said defiantly from the fireplace.

  Julius paused before responding, and when he did, anger seethed beneath his words. “All in good time, Elita, all in good time.” He stood abruptly. “I grow weary of my own voice.”

  Elita, her lips drawn tight, moved to leave with him. He held up his hand. “No. I shall retire alone. I wish to prepare for the turning.”

  He leaned down over me. Taking my hand in his own, he said quietly, his powerful mesmerizing voice now down to a sharp-edged whisper that was all the more hypnotic, “Tomorrow, we will be one, and the future will be eternally ours.”

  He left the room without another word or even a glance back. Elita moved stiffly toward the door.

  “Hey,” I said, “what am I supposed to do now, and who is Lazarus?”

  “I will not help you in any manner,” Elita said. “You are absolutely, utterly on your own. If vampires prayed, I would pray you were never turned.” Her voice dropped to a dangerous level. “I will see you vanquished.”

  I was left alone, bewildered, in the center of the room. My heart raced. Terror gnawed at the edge of resolve and the thin line between sanity and hysteria was bending dangerously close to irreversible damage. The absence of the suffocating sound of his voice was too much to bear, and alone with my thoughts, a scream was forming on the edge of my tongue.

  “Are you ready for bed, madam? The sun will be up shortly.” Frightened, I spun around and saw Jenkins standing in the open door behind me.

  “I’m not a vampire, I don’t need to hide from the sun,” I yelled.

  “In that case, perhaps you would care for some breakfast?”

  TWENTY

  The next morning I woke up alone, the way I had woken up for most of my life, only on this morning it nearly broke my heart in two. Dad asked me how I was doing and I said not very damn good. He drove us by the Sagebrush for breakfast.

  Hazel brought us my favorite — biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs and coffee. My body felt half starved from all the healing it was undergoing and since this might be the last decent food I’d have for a while, I savored every bite. After we finished, we strolled out into the parking lot and I gave Rex the piece of toast I’d smuggled out in a napkin, after first balling it around a piece of pain pill.

  The air was crisp, but the sunshine was warm enough to leave the windows down for the drive to Jackson. It was beautiful and it looked like winter was already making an early appearance. The aspens and cottonwoods were turning golden and crimson and the uppermost peaks of the Tetons had a dusting of snow, and looked about as lonely as I felt.

  There wasn’t a whole lot to say, so we just listened to the same sad old country songs on the radio. I knew Dad’s pride was hurting because he couldn’t come along to New York City, but he’d get over it. Life without Lizzie didn’t seem too hopeful for me, but there wasn’t any sense getting Dad hurt on account of my tragic love life.

  At the airport, I coaxed Rex into one of them little dog carriers. He didn’t like it much, but the pain pill had made him limp and willing. He licked delicately at my hand through the wires and then curled up and went to sleep. His sides were moving slow with each breath and I watched him roll down the conveyor belt out of sight.

  Dad stood with me until I had to cross security. The heaviness of our thoughts kept us quiet until finally he looked at me and sighed. “You find her, boy. Find her and bring her back.”

  “I aim to.”

  He reached into his jacket and pulled out an aged and weathered silver crucifix trimmed in brass. The middle of it was worn smooth by use, and seeing it brought a lump to my throat, for I recognized it well.

  “Thought maybe this’d help. It belonged to your mother. Her and God was real close.”

  I tucked it into my pocket and gave him a hug. “I’ll call when I get there,” I said.

  “You really ought to get a cell phone,” Dad said. “It would make staying in touch a whole lot easier.”

  “I keep meaning to get around to it,” I said.

  He nodded and then turned to leave and I watched him walking down the terminal. His shoulders were slumped and his whole body looked as tired and sore as mine felt. He’d been through too much with Travis and I knew the thought of losing another child, even one grown up and more or less able, was wearing on him.

  “Hey, Dad,” I yelled, “one more thing. Could you see to Snort?”

  He raised his hand without looking back.

  Seems like I’d barely been on that plane long enough to finish my whiskey-reinforced coffee and the little bag of honey-roasted nuts before it landed in Salt Lake City. As it shimmied and shook, I thought about Lizzie and the vampires I was going to have to go through to get her. Just to reassure myself, I took the crucifix out of my jacket, closed my eyes and held it.

  About that time the stewardess tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Are you feeling okay, sir?” she asked, her voice kind and soft.

  “Hell, no,” I said, looking up in surprise. “Not since the vampires come for her.”

  Obviously that was too much information for her because she scooted up the aisle. I put the cross away and gnawed off a little more pain pill.

  On the ground, I had a layover and stood in line for fifteen minutes to buy a ten-dollar hamburger, but changed my mind and made my way to the bar where I paid five dollars for a beer that tasted suspiciously like what they serve at The Watering Hole for a dollar fifty.

  My head was so full of hurt and anger that I couldn’t even finish it. I just sat and stared out the window at all the concrete and airplanes coming and going. Deep in my reverie, I almost missed my boarding call, but heard the final one and made a dash for the gate. As I clattered down the hall, I hoped Rex made the connection.

  For the life of me, I can’t understand how airlines stay in business.

  What they call chairs I wouldn’t use as a footstool, and by the time they lowered the little matchbox-sized TV for a movie no one paid for the first time, my legs felt like they were broken in two and my back was aching. Between that and s
itting right in the middle of the crying baby section, I pretty soon had a tension headache along with dried-out sinuses.

  Eventually, the captain came on to say buckle up, we’d started our descent into New York where the temperature was fifty nine degrees under a light drizzle.

  I raised up the little window slide and took a peek, curious and expecting to be inspired with an immediate sense of awe from my first glimpse of New York. But all I could see was a swirling mass of rain clouds, or maybe it was smog. I slid the window shut and prepared for landing by imagining giant fireballs of shattered metal pinwheeling down the runway, exercising my grip on the armrest until my knuckles turned white.

  Once on the ground, it was so far to the baggage claim that I wished I had Snort along for the ride and that made me sad and even more anxious to get Rex. There was a little chute special for pets at the baggage area, so I waited until a guy in coveralls come out and looked at me fiercely. “Your dog the one that threw up on everything?” he asked.

  “More than likely,” I said. “Flying don’t agree with him.”

  About then, his little carrier slid down the ramp. The front of it, the wire door, was covered with has-been kibbles and Rex was sitting stiffly in the back, solemn and dignified, despite the wet evidence otherwise. He stood up when he saw me, gave a little bark and wagged his stump of a tail. I hoisted the carrier off and set it down, opening the door. He stepped forth gingerly, licked at my hand and looked around the terminal at the new place we were in.

  What I meant to say was that I missed him, but instead I swatted him on the butt and said, “Look at this. I ain’t cleaning it. It’s ruined. You and your weak stomach.”

  He jumped on me anyway, nuzzling his face under my coat until I had petted him enough and he could jump down and stretch.

  I left the carrier behind and we headed outside where a line of taxi cabs stretched clean out of sight around the corner and the line of people waiting for them was even longer. A fellow in a uniform blew his whistle and motioned cabs up and people in, flirting with the women. He flagged us down a cab without flirting at all. The driver didn’t speak much English, but didn’t seem overly concerned about Rex, just grinned and motioned us in.

  The first thing I learned about New York is that all cab drivers honk. It’s the part of their job they seem to enjoy the most. He even honked at people who hadn’t done anything. Despite the ill effects the honking was having on my headache, he soon enough got us on a six-lane highway heading to New York and, I hoped, Lizzie.

  The second thing I learned is cabbies make significantly more than cowboys. That meter kept on ticking away dollars as I got my first look at the city.

  As much as it pains me to admit it, New York is a hell of a city. If a town is going to be a city, then it ought to do it right and be a goddamn big city. New York sure seemed to have that part down.

  Skyscrapers tall as mountains and the whole skyline jagged with them and lit up. There was a sense of history in all that stone work that was hard to explain, but felt solid. And the air was heavy, too, with a strange smell of exhaust fumes, frustration and garbage.

  Despite my preconceptions, I found it impossible not to be interested. I pressed my face against the window, trying to take it all in, and Rex did the same on the other side, somewhat relieved that in spite of all the people, there didn’t seem to be any alpacas.

  The whole place was bustling with people and I got the sense that it was like that no matter the hour. Most of them were dressed like movie stars, which is to say the men were all in suits and the women were in as little as possible, and fur coats.

  Seeing that mass of people, I realized I’d gotten mighty comfortable living in a town where I knew everyone by name. Here I was surrounded by something like twelve zillion people, people not really that different than me. All of us busy living and working and dreaming and struggling like everybody else in the whole world. And yet, here there were so many dreams it seemed easy to get lost in the mix of it. Out west, a man is judged by not being part of the crowd, which ain’t too hard given that the crowd is so damn small. That might explain why so many people out east seemed to be trying so hard.

  An hour and fifty-six dollars later, the cabby hit the brakes without warning, smiled and pointed at the meter.

  I hoped we were in the right place as I sadly peeled three twenties from my now seriously threatened cash reserve and slid them into the little drawer in the window. If there was any change left over, he didn’t talk about it, just roared off. I stood in the middle of the street and took a look around. There was a fire station on one side and Lizzie’s apartment building on the other. Rex drifted over to the sidewalk and I hunched over in a doorway.

  After checking to make sure no one was looking, I stood at the front door to the building, wondering what to do next. It was locked, and although there was a buzzer, there wasn’t anyone inside who would let me in. I was hoping for a lucky break but the way my luck had been running, I reckoned I’d be standing there close to fifty years.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The mansion was quiet. Jenkins reminded me the building was completely fortified, no escape was possible and that Julius gave orders I was to be killed if I attempted to escape. Other than that, I was free to do as I wished, within the confines of my room.

  With him following, that morning I checked every door and he was telling the truth.

  Lying on the four-poster bed, my breath was quick and shallow. I was tired, very tired. I hadn’t slept since my forced arrival because I was afraid to shut my eyes even for a second. And now the whole day had passed, minute by torturous minute. From the window, I watched the slowly setting sun.

  How did they get so many people to play along with this elaborate hoax? Who were these people?

  Jenkins was so convincing as the attentive, serene butler. The right age, the right looks, the right manner; he could be on a sitcom. Despite his role in my captivity, I sensed I could trust him more than the others.

  He’d attended to me all day as everyone else slept, or hid, and although we’d talked only a little, a bond seemed to be developing.

  Now, as night fell, he gave me his solemn promise that if I took a bath, I would not, under any circumstances, be disturbed. I believed him and so was soon submerged in the clawfoot tub, nearly overflowing, and breathing in the steam rich with lavender and rose essential oils. I put candles around the edge of the porcelain, like votive candles in a church. As I lit each one, I said a silent prayer for Tucker. Lit by sadness, nothing could penetrate the darkness inside me.

  Steam collected on the glass surfaces around the room and yet the water felt merely tepid. I scrubbed furiously at my skin, my hair, every inch of my body. I felt dirty, poisoned from the inside. I visualized it oozing silently and invisibly through my bloodstream, into my flesh, collecting in a thin veil covering my skin. Why was I cold, so cold?

  When I returned to the bedchamber, a thick towel wrapped around me, I spoke to Jenkins, who waited quietly to do my bidding. “Jenkins, turn up the heat or stoke the fire or whatever. Just make it warm in here.”

  “Madam, I will of course do as you request, but it won’t help. Your blood is already responding to the presence of Julius.”

  “You’re human, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, madam.”

  “Why do you work for these people?”

  “My father, his father before him and his father have served in this position. It has been a good life and not one that I have ever had any reason to question.”

  “You don’t question the fact that I am being held here against my will? That they kill people? Ruin lives?”

  His back stiffened. “Certain aspects are distasteful.”

  “This is a sick little game you people play.”

  “It is no game, madam. No game at all.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed, crossed my legs. “You don’t really believe that they are vampires?”

  “They are,” he said.

 
; “They don’t have fangs.”

  He turned to me. “Unlike the cinematic variety, vampires have no need for fangs. Their strength is such that natural teeth suffice. Or knives, if the circumstances call for discretion.”

  “Does a stake do them in?”

  He built the fire up to a roaring pyre and I wondered how he could look so cool under those layers of stiff clothes. “Quite handily. As does sunshine. You will learn about that soon enough.”

  “Don’t count on it. What about garlic?”

  “Miss Elita eats it raw,” he said. “She claims it helps her complexion.”

  “She does have nice skin. What about holy water and crucifixes?”

  “A decline in religious beliefs has led those items to fall into disuse.”

  I stretched back onto the pillows. “I saw Julius sucking back booze like water, but what about regular food? Do they need anything besides blood?”

  “May I sit?”

  “Of course.” I motioned at a chair and he pulled it around to face me.

  “They do not require food, as Adamites do. But they enjoy it.”

  “I see. And sex?”

  He cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow. “Rest assured, the life of the undead revolves around two things: blood and sensual pleasure.”

  He returned to the fireplace to stoke the logs, then moved silently around the room pretending to tidy, dust and rearrange.

  “They will come for you shortly,” he said finally as he pulled a gown from the closet, motioning for me to dress. It was a light blue satin dress, long and sleeveless with a ribbed train of cloth from the waistline. At the sight of it, I was drawn to the painting above the fireplace, the one that looked like me.

  Jenkins followed my gaze and then nodded. The dress looked the same as the one in the painting. I stamped my foot and spun around silently, my back now to the painting. Remember, I told myself, these people, Julius, Elita, all of them, are nuts. Crazy. They are not vampires.