Ghost smirked. Jack caught the expression but looked down into Dawson, pretending not to see. The big man was still a mystery to Jack, and perhaps he always would be. A man like him — a thing like him — wore mysteries like a cloak.
As they approached the edge of the forest that opened onto the river's flood plain, a voice called out.
"Hold it right there! Hands away from your weapons. Keep still, and no sudden moves, if you don't want a face full of shot."
Jack froze and looked around, trying to see where the voices came from. Callie was ahead of him, head turning left and right, scouring the undergrowth all around them. It was the wolves who looked up. Smelled them, Jack thought, as he too looked up into the tree canopy.
Ropes were wound around several trunks, stained to match the bark's color. Higher up, partially hidden by the lowest boughs, sat nests of sticks and leaves. They reminded Jack of the coverings over the pits they'd passed recently, but these were there to hide something else entirely.
"Who's there?" the voice called. Jack turned a little, trying to place where it had come from. He wondered how many people spent their nights up there, keeping watch and ready to raise the alarm should any things approach through the woods. And he wondered also whether this was a concerted response from everyone in Dawson, or the activity of an industrious few. The walls and look-outs he'd seen around the town must have taken some effort to construct, but there must still be those whose sole intent was gold.
"Callie King," the woman called out. "Up from South Dakota to pay a visit to Len Truman. You folks have a problem he reckons I might know something about."
"That right? How do we know you ain't part of the problem?"
"It's daylight, ain't it?" she shouted, short-tempered. Jack glanced at Sabine, and they shared a nervous smile.
"Who're the others?"
Callie turned around and looked at them all — Jack, Sabine, the wolves, and Ghost. Jack sensed a tension in the wolves, .
"Friends," Callie said easily. "We bin through it, last night. Seen four of 'em bloodthirsty bastards off, with the help of these folks. And . . ." She scratched her head, and seemed suddenly contrite. "And other than Ghost, the only name I know fer sure is Jack London."
"Jack?" a different voice said from the trees.
"Who's that?" Jack said. Thirty feet away, close to Louis, a roped untangled itself from a tree and flapped around as a shape descended.
"Jack London!" the boy shouted. He jumped the last few feet and darted past Louis, sparing him a curious glance and then rushing across to Jack. At first Jack did not recognize Hal Sawyer, and when he did he was shocked at the change. The boy had become a man, and picked up some scars in the process.
"Hal!" Jack said. "It's good to see you!"
"What are you doing here?" Hal asked. "Didn't you find enough of Hell before?"
Jack held Hal's upper arms and sighed deeply. "Let's get us all into Dawson," he said. "Then it's food and a drink for us, and before we rest, I'm sure you've got a story to tell too."
"One I barely believe." Hal whistled. Several more ropes whipped and waved away from trunks around them, and their reception committee descended to escort them into Dawson.
Chapter Seven - Nature Abhors
Once the day had truly begun and people were out and about, Dawson didn't seem much changed from the town Jack had left behind. The air was filled with the noise of construction — hammers pounding and saws cutting — and the smell of sawdust mixed with the heavy, fermented odor of stale beer that wafted out of the saloons they passed as they walked through town. But this was a fleeting illusion of normalcy and it vanished as Jack looked more closely at the work going on around him. Watchtowers were being built at the edges of town, rising above every other structure. A trio of carpenters were hard at work making coffins out of pine boards — grimly producing as many fresh pine boxes as they could manage, to keep up with demand. Guns were everywhere, and the eyes of the people of Dawson had a haunted look, despite the sun crawling slowly across the summer sky.
Dawson City was under siege.
There were other indications of the fear that ruled the streets. Jack knew that nearly everyone in town had come to the settlement hoping either to strike gold or to build a business that would thrive on the gold of others. But Jack saw not a single band of prospectors heading out of Dawson to their claims. Given that not working their claims might be perceived as abandoning them, the only thing that could keep such men from the quest for wealth would be mortal terror. They feared for their lives.
Hal had already told him as much, but seeing the quiet pall of dread that hung over the town made it real.
"I still can't believe you're here," the kid said, shaking his head as he accompanied Jack, Callie, Sabine, and the wolves through town. "I'd say I can't believe you made it here alive with the demons out there, but after what you've already survived, I'm not real surprised."
Jack glanced over at Louis, Vukovich, and the Reverend. They walked skittishly, eyeing the people of Dawson warily — that many frightened humans with weapons would be quick to violence if they knew what kind of monsters walked among them, no matter whose side the wolves were on.
"We didn't all survive," Jack said gravely.
A shadow passed over Hal's features. "I'm sorry to hear it. But that seems to be the way of things up here nowadays."
"You said 'demons,'" Jack observed. "Is that what people think they're guarding against?"
Hal scraped a thoughtful hand over the fuzz on his young chin. "There's lots of guesses, mostly in whispers, but 'demons' is what you hear the most." He lowered his voice. "I haven't told a soul about you and the Wendigo, but after what you told me, it ain't hard for me to believe in demons, Jack. Prospectors have been found slaughtered in their camps. Folks go out hunting for gold and never come back. In the last couple of months, we've had more than thirty people — mostly women and girls — go missing in the middle of the night, and some men have turned up dead in the mornings, pale as ghosts, wounds in their throats, but hardly any blood around 'em at all. If you've got a better name than demons for things that can do all that, I'd be glad to know it. Especially if you've got any sense of how to stop 'em."
"I don't," Jack said, but he gestured off to his left, where Callie walked with Sabine. "But Callie over there, the one with the guns and the determined look . . . I'd be willing to bet she has a few ideas that might help you. The things that hunted us in the dark are called vampires, Hal. And though she's not as direct with information as I'd like, seems to me she came all the way from South Dakota to Dawson for the sole purpose of killing them."
"Well, then, I suspect Dawson's gonna give her a hell of a welcome."
Hal had changed. Jack still thought of him as a kid, but at sixteen he'd begun to fill out and was nearly as tall as Jack himself. His delight at seeing Jack again had made Hal seem boyish at first, but now a grim light glittered in his eyes and he had a knowing air that suggested he had seen things that had stripped him of any remaining innocence.
Jack threw a glance over his shoulder. Ghost hung back, following them, alternating between gazing after Sabine and studying the town with open curiosity. He behaved as though he was invulnerable, with none of the caution in evidence in the behavior of the other wolves. To Jack's left, Callie and Sabine spoke quietly, and Jack was grateful for Callie's presence; Ghost seemed less inclined to haunt Sabine with his attentions with Callie at her side.
Don't make this end in blood, Jack thought. We've got other monsters to contend with.
As if Ghost had heard his thoughts, the hugely muscled captain met his gaze and smiled. Jack faced forward again without acknowledging him. He and Ghost had made it a habit of sparing each other's lives, and now that the monster seemed willing to explore the small bits of humanity left within him, Jack would hate to have to kill him. But if Ghost's obsession with Sabine threatened her in any way, he would kill his former captain without a second thought or a moment's remors
e — or die in the attempt.
"Truman's Mercantile is just ahead," Hal said, pointing out a two story structure. They were three blocks from the river, on a side street that hadn't existed a year ago. There still wasn't much to Dawson, but it was growing . . . or it had been, until the vampires had come.
"I don't know why Mr. Truman didn't just call it a hardware store," Hal went on. "I've been in a fair few of 'em, and there's no doubt that's what he sells."
The construction was recent, but seemed more solidly built than most of the structures around it. Len Truman had spent the money and taken the time to have the work done properly. Even the fancy lettering on the sign above the front door spoke of the care he obviously put into his business. Jack knew that many saw opportunity in Dawson, but Len Truman didn't seem like a fly-by-night sort. He'd decided to make a life here, and when horror and fear had thrown their shadows over the town, he had reached out to Callie King. Jack still didn't know her whole story, how she came to know so much about vampires and how to kill them, but obviously Truman did.
Louis caught Jack's attention as they reached the front of the store and pulled him aside for a private exchange.
"You don't need us for this, mon ami," he said, gesturing toward Vukovich and the Reverend. "We'll go on to the hotel and sort out rooms. Also, the idea of a bath is very appealing. Even more appealing is the idea of Vukovich taking a bath. A cloud of stink follows him everywhere."
Louis grinned for a moment, and Jack thought his gold tooth had never looked more mundane than it did in Dawson, where the population usually lived and breathed for gold.
"Thanks, Louis," Jack said. "We'll be along as soon as soon as Callie's had a talk with Mr. Truman. Maybe you could make sure they've got a room for her as well?"
"But of course," Louis replied. His gaze shifted toward Ghost. "Does he worry you? Should one of us remain here?"
Ghost paid no attention to them. He already stood on the stoop of Truman's Mercantile, curious and impatient. The presence of vampires had apparently fired some interest in him, and Jack was not surprised. Ghost had decided to try to put his past predations behind him, but now he had discovered new prey — something he could kill without fear of compromising whatever attempts at humanity he might be making.
"He'll behave," Jack said, and he felt certain of it.
He and Ghost had been in a war of the psyche since the moment of their first encounter. Jack had defeated him, but Ghost still lived. If the sea wolf decided he'd had enough of searching for a new way of life, his first attack would be psychological, Jack was certain, not physical.
"If you're sure . . . ." Louis said, though he cast a suspicious glance at Ghost.
"Go on. Wash up. Get some rest if you can," Jack told him.
Louis needed no further encouragement. He signaled Vukovich and the Reverend, and the three former pirates trudged back to the main street and turned right, heading for the Dawson Hotel. What little they'd salvaged on their trek from the sunken steamer hung from their backs. Jack wasn't worried. Once they left Dawson and went north, the wolves could hunt to their heart's content, and Jack had survived with nothing but his wits in the wild before. It was Sabine that concerned him. They would have to stick to the river's edge for as long as they could manage it. When they eventually had to turn their path away from the water, he feared she would become too weak to travel far. Since her real limits had yet to be tested, he hoped she would find some way to carry on.
"Are we just going to stand here, Mr. London?" Ghost called to him.
"Well, I ain't," Callie said. She hitched up her gun belt and stepped up onto the stoop.
Ghost grinned as he went to open the door for her, almost a gentleman. His grin vanished as he discovered the door was locked.
"It's not open," Ghost said, glancing at Hal as if accusing him of some crime.
"That don't seem right," Hal said. "Though it is early, yet."
"Doesn't the store keep regular hours?" Sabine asked. Even wan and tired, she was still radiantly beautiful, a brightness amidst the grim gray mood that enshrouded Dawson.
"A lot has changed these past couple of months," Hal said. "Who knows what's regular anymore? But the Trumans live above the shop. The steps are just around back. Unless you want to go to the hotel first and come back — "
"Son, I been on boats and trains and in the backs of trucks, and I killed weird Eskimo vampire polar bears to get here and speak to Leonard Truman, who promised me a fair bit of money and the sport of killing more of the evil bloodsucking bastards what took my husband from me. I ain't in the mood for a bath or to rest my pretty head on a comfy pillow." With that, Callie marched off the stoop and around the back of the store, leaving the others, to follow.
"Well, then," Hal said, smiling. "I guess we're waking the Trumans." He hurried after Callie.
As Jack and Sabine pursued him, Ghost fell in beside them. "I like her," he said.
"Of course you do," Sabine said quietly. "She's hunting."
As Hal first knocked and then rapped loudly on the door at the top of the rear stairs, Jack mused that they would present quite a sight to anyone glancing out a window at their motley company. He and Ghost were unshaven and wild-looking and through the grimy glass of the Trumans' residence, Callie would look like a shapely and especially well-armed mountain man. So it did not surprise him when Hal's knocking drew no immediate response.
Jack watched the window curtains for a telltale twitch, but nothing seemed to stir inside.
"It's quite early," Sabine said. "Is there a church in Dawson? Perhaps the Trumans are at worship."
Callie snorted. "Len may've changed a bit since he got himself hitched, but the man never set foot across the threshold of a church. Might burst into flames if he did."
Considering the threat they faced, the joke fell flat, and when she'd thought about it a moment, the humor drained from Callie's face.
"Can you sense anyone?" Jack asked Sabine, but she only shook her head, a haunted look in her eyes, and he realized how foolish the question had been. Her magic, whatever it truly was, only allowed her to touch the minds of those on the water, and they'd left the river behind.
"Knock again," Jack said, though Hal had already done so several times.
Hal frowned deeply. "I don't think anyone's — "
The thunk of the lock being thrown back made them all flinch — all except for Ghost. The door drew inward as if pushed by a breeze, but only wide enough for a pale, thin face to peer out.
"Go away, boy," the woman said, her gaze flicking anxiously from Hal to Jack and the others. Skittish and wary, she closed the door an additional inch.
"Belle, we need to speak to Len," Hal began. "The store isn't open. Is he sick or something?"
The woman gave a single nod. "Or something. He isn't well enough to speak with anyone. Just go away, son. I'll tell him you sought him out."
She began to push the door shut, but Jack stepped up beside Hal and thrust out a hand to stop it closing all the way.
"Mrs. Truman, open the door," he called. A snuffling sound made him turn and he saw Ghost sniffing at the air, frowning at whatever scent he'd picked up.
"This ain't right," Callie said, one hand on a pistol as she jockeyed for position behind Jack and Hal on the landing. "Mrs. Truman — Belle — it's Callie King, here. Len sent for me to come on up here to Dawson. He's hired me on to help with the trouble brewin' round here."
"I know who you are." The woman's voice was dry as the rustle of old paper. "He was wrong to ask you. You're not wanted here. Now . . . please . . ."
This last was almost a sob. Jack began to slacken pressure against the door, thinking they would have to discuss how to proceed. With a low growl, Ghost pushed through them and shoved the door open with one hand, his great strength knocking Belle Truman sprawling onto the wooden floor.
The pale woman whimpered as she scrambled out of the rectangle of sunlight that reached through the open door. A chill rippled up Jack's sp
ine as he studied her. Back against the wall of the sitting room they'd entered, Belle slid up to stand, half-turned from them, clad in a thick cotton nightdress speckled with droplets of dark red. Only one eye peeked out from the veil of unkempt gray hair that fell across her face, and it regarded them with some combination of fear and revulsion.
"Get out," she rasped.
Sabine started toward her, and Jack could feel the empathy radiating from her. He put out an arm and prevented her approaching the woman. "Wait."
"She's ill," Sabine protested.
"I've seen this a dozen times," Callie said quietly. "Trust me, she ain't sick. At least not the kinda sick you mean."
"At least . . . close the door . . ." Belle Truman said sadly, slumping in defeat. She hugged herself and shuddered, unable to meet their eyes.
Ghost slammed the door just as hard as he'd knocked it open. He sniffed the air in the second story residence.
"Belle, where's Len?" Hal asked, glancing warily around the sitting room.
The woman began to speak, then swooned a little and only the wall was holding her up. She put a shaking hand over her mouth and began to cry in silence, tears trickling down her cheeks. Jack had seen grief far too often in his life and he recognized it, but there was more than sorrow in Belle's anguish. She seemed to want to bolt or to scream, and the way she avoided their eyes spoke of dreadful shame. Her hand slid away from covering her mouth to rub at her throat.
Belle whispered something Jack didn't catch.
"What's that?" Hal asked.
Ghost growled softly. "She said, 'he was so hungry.'"
Jack had a terrible feeling she didn't mean her husband. He glanced at Ghost. "Go have a look."
"You giving me orders now, Jack?" Ghost asked. "Now that you're captain, I mean?"
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