by Moira Rogers
“There are too many. Too scattered, and sometimes too far away. The one time she left to go hunting—” Grace’s throat worked as she swallowed hard. “More of us stay alive when she’s here to fight them.”
“If she couldn’t do it alone, chances are good I’ll need to wire back to Iron Creek for help myself.”
“More bloodhounds?”
She didn’t like the idea. Archer crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, more bloodhounds.”
“And they’ll come?” Tension twisted into doubt, and that hint of vulnerability returned. “Forgive me for being uncertain, Archer, but most of us have come to believe we weren’t worth saving.”
“If we’d known—” No, too much. He couldn’t let on that perhaps the Guild had dragged its feet so long because of factors that had more to do with Archer than with Crystal Springs. “I wish we’d come sooner, Grace, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”
“I wish you had as well.” She stepped wide of him, moving like a skittish creature wary of a predator. “If you follow me, Cook will find you something to break your fast. And you’ll need lodgings. Plenty of fine, comfortable homes have been abandoned by their owners.”
“I don’t need fine. The comfortable part will suffice.”
She snuck a peek at him, too fast for him to catch more than a glimpse of big blue eyes before she turned away, her steps echoing on the wooden walkway. “What will you need from us before you go about your business?”
He needed information, not the big eyes she kept giving him. “I’ll need to sit down with someone who can tell me exactly what’s happened over the last few months. Diana, probably.”
“Diana and Cecil know the particulars of the situation.” Two children pressed up against a window in the building adjacent to the saloon, staring at them with wide eyes as their noses left smudges on the glass. Grace lowered her voice. “But most anyone can tell you how it started, and how many we’ve lost. It’s not something any of us are likely to forget.”
He imagined not. “I might call on you for help. If there’s one person left people will listen to, it’s the schoolteacher. Some of the things I might suggest to deal with the situation here are liable to meet with…resistance.”
“They’ll listen.” It was a quiet, confident promise. The words that followed held a tart edge of humor. “Once I work past my own inevitable resistance.”
Oddly, Archer found himself certain she didn’t doubt his capabilities. “What’s the problem, Grace?”
Her chin lifted the tiniest bit. “It’s hard to know how to behave with a stranger who witnessed my most shameful moment.”
“I told you I’d forget it. Not much else I can do.”
“It’s still…” Her voice faded to a husky whisper as color tinged her cheeks. “I feel exposed, at my worst. I simply want you to know that I’m stronger than I look. I’ll do what needs doing, whether it shocks me or frightens me. I’ll do it.”
Damn him for a fool…but he believed her. “All right.”
The saloon entrance looked like it had once consisted of swinging half-doors, but they had been built up and sturdily reinforced, heavy enough to require a good tug to drag one open. “We try to gather here when there’s trouble,” Grace explained as she stepped inside. “Those willing to listen, in any case.”
“And those who won’t listen?”
“There aren’t as many as there once were.”
Meaning they’d been taken, or the once-stubborn had seen the light after a few raids. “Cecil and Diana. I want to talk to them after breakfast, and Diana and I may be going out later this morning.”
It was all he knew how to do—identify the problem at hand, learn as much as he could, and formulate a plan for dealing with it. The same way he’d dealt with things in his former life, and it worked just fine now too.
An obstacle was an obstacle, whether it was the walking dead or a bank vault.
Chapter Two
Diana knelt behind the scraggly brush just shy of the crest of the ridge. “Down there,” she murmured. “A couple of outcroppings they’ve shored up to use as camps. The bloodsuckers sleep while their ghouls stand guard.”
Archer carefully peered over the top of the rocks and down into the valley below. There was little cover closer to the cavelike structures, but they showed no outward sign of being occupied—no mounts tied outside, no cooking fires or camp supplies. “Have you tried taking them down? Making it a little harder for them to camp near the town?”
“Only about three times a month,” said the boy crouched on his other side. Jacob had the gangly limbs of a young man growing too fast for his body to keep up, but he moved quietly enough, even with a rifle slung across his back. “Thought about trying to bring the caves down on top of ’em, but we ain’t got explosives or nothing. Barely got enough bullets.”
It might be possible to bring them down without dynamite, but it would take planning. “When was the last strike?”
“Three days ago.” The boy’s face paled. “Miss Linwood begged old man Robertson to move closer to the rest of us, but he wouldn’t leave his house, on account of his wife having died there a few years back. They must’ve snatched him straight out of his bed.”
Fuck. “And how close together?”
“Every week or two.” Diana scrubbed a hand over her face. “Sometimes, they’re in and gone before I can do anything. The rest of the time, I’m so outnumbered it’d be foolish to try.”
Jacob’s shoulders hunched. “They’re picking us off, a couple at a time.”
“We need to get down there.” Archer shifted his weight and stood. “If they’re reusing these spots, they might have left things behind. Something that can lead us to them.”
More than a little bit of awe filled Jacob’s eyes, the hero worship that had been simmering just beneath the surface since morning. Archer was just about to speak again when Diana uttered a sharp noise of warning and yanked him back down. “Jacob, hide!”
A flurry of activity below drew Archer’s attention. Ghouls, half a dozen of them, shuffling toward one of the outcroppings Diana had indicated. “Damn it, there could be some vampires bunked down there right now.”
Jacob swung his rifle off his back. “I could pick ’em off from here.”
Archer jerked him closer to the ground before he could work the bolt on his firearm. “They’ve got guns too, kid, and there ain’t enough cover up here.”
Diana glanced around. “No way to hit them head-on without exposure. Do you think we can flank them?”
Six ghouls. A three-on-one fight, if he didn’t count the kid. Still not terrible odds, assuming he and Diana could get close enough to engage before drawing fire. “We can circle around. Even if the ghouls wander off again, we’ll take out the bloodsuckers and lay a trap.”
“What about me?” Jacob asked, damn near shaking with eagerness.
Archer stifled a sigh. “Aim true, kid, and try not to shoot me in the ass.”
It was a good half-mile run the long way down the ridge and around the outcropping. Archer kept an eye out in case more guards had arrived, but there were only the six they’d seen when he crouched down behind a sizable cluster of broken rocks. “On three,” he whispered. “Jacob, you hunker down back here and pick them off when you get a clear shot.”
He didn’t wait for the boy to reply before counting off. He fired blindly as he rose, and a lucky bullet hit one of the ghouls in the leg. It screamed, a sound Diana echoed as she dove from behind the rocks.
Two ghouls moved at the same time, climbing carelessly over their prone partner. Both launched at Archer, mouths wide in soundless screams. He shot the first in the throat and knocked the other down with a swing of his rifle.
Snapping his neck was a mercy, one Archer offered without hesitation. In front of him, Diana tumbled another ghoul to the dirt before finishing him off with a knife. Two dead, a number that became three when one of Jacob’s bullets found its mark.
Diana sure
the hell moved and fought like a hound. Archer left her to it and headed for the tiny cave, where one ghoul hung back, an unnatural sneer on his face.
“Leave,” he growled. The words echoed in Archer’s head, grating like fingernails on a blackboard, and he knew it wasn’t the ghoul speaking. His vampire master, the creature awakened but hiding in the shadowed lair.
The command deserved an answer. “Fuck you.”
The sneer deepened even as helpless fear mounted in the ghoul’s eyes, some wisp of the spirit fighting to escape its master’s clutches. A useless struggle, one crushed as the vampire’s laughter echoed through Archer’s mind. “Leave, and perhaps we’ll simply kill the women and children.”
“Where I’m from, that’s not incentive. Guaran-damn-teed to piss off the menfolk, though.”
This time the laugh held a sickening edge, sadistic and hungry. “A quiet, gentle death is gift. There are so many ways to feed on the innocent. Their fear and their pain and their fragile bodies.”
A ghoul could be a vampire’s voice and eyes, even their hands, but all that puppetry took its toll in distraction and slow reflexes. Archer bit back a snarl and slipped his hand into the small pack slung over his shoulder. “Lots of ways to kill vampires too, not to mention their ghouls.”
The ghoul crooked a finger in awkward invitation. “Come in, fool. Come and see how many we are. How many are yet to come.”
“I have a better idea.” His hand closed around a familiar shape, smooth and warm, and he thumbed out the pin before pulling the grenade free of the bag. “Let’s turn up the lights.”
He threw the grenade hard, and it whistled past the ghoul’s head, glowing even in the midday sun.
One of Satira’s latest inventions, and it worked like a charm. He counted two quick heartbeats before sunlight exploded in the cave, a flash bright enough to illuminate five figures.
It didn’t last long—twenty seconds at the outside—but it took less than five for the screams to start. Even the ghoul began to sizzle, and he cried out as he stumbled away from the cave’s opening—only to stop short on the wicked end of Diana’s blade.
“Five vampires and half a dozen ghouls,” she muttered. “That’s about right for a raid. They must have been planning one for tonight.”
Archer watched one flaming figure and then another drop to dusty stone before vanishing in a puff of smoke and ash, leaving only bones behind. “Not anymore.”
“Holy hell.” Jacob’s boots skittered over pebbles as he scrambled to their sides. “What was that? Some sort of bloodhound weapon?”
“A little something our resident inventor put together for us.”
“Do you have another one?”
“Not on me.” He had more supplies, everything Satira had been able to shove off on him, stored in his packs at the saloon. “We’d better get back and prepare everyone.”
Diana squinted into the sun as she turned and looked across the prairie. “You think they’ll mount a search?”
“I think they know what happened.” They always seemed to, no matter the distance or circumstance. “I think they’ll come for vengeance. An eye for an eye, make us pay.”
One way or another, the gangs were coming.
Hope had returned to Crystal Springs.
Grace hovered just inside the room that housed the boiler, enjoying the warmth of the freshly fed fire at her back. The bright electric lights twinkling from the pair of impossibly tacky chandeliers were a reminder of a better time, a time when this little border town had boasted its own inventor and dozens of luxuries that made eking out a life here more pleasant than one might expect.
She’d seen more impressive creations. Carriages that required no horses to pull them, great ships that sailed the clouds above New Orleans. Sometimes for no more reason than because they could, even if it cost a fortune.
Here, in Crystal Springs, everything had a purpose. The lights twinkled merrily, illuminating happy faces as they listened with rapt attention to Jacob’s latest—and most heartily embellished—retelling of the great battle against the vampires. Elaborate copper piping lined the walls, carrying hot water to the rooms above and heating the dining area to a comfortable temperature, even with the evening chill settling outside.
The hero of the evening had been enthroned at the finest table. Archer looked vaguely uncomfortable with all the attention, including the fawning from the working girls who’d gathered along with everyone else.
He almost looked the way she felt when terrified children clung to her skirts or adults turned to her for comfort or wisdom. As if the burden of respect weighed far heavier than the responsibilities of leadership.
Whimsy, to see her own insecurities in a man who inhaled confidence and exhaled dominance. He might be uncomfortable playing the hero, but she had no doubt he expected absolute obedience from them all.
An innocent schoolteacher wouldn’t know enough to blush at the thought. And if Grace wanted anyone to believe she was one, she’d do well to act with more restraint than Lucy, who might have slid under the table and done her best to get her face in Archer’s lap if Cook hadn’t hauled her off to the kitchen by her ear.
In another time, in another place…
Grace shivered and forced her gaze away. She’d had hands like Archer’s in her hair. Rough and demanding, strong and unforgiving. She knew how seductive it could seem, and how disappointing it could be.
But when she looked back, he was stubbornly avoiding eye contact with another of the girls, one who’d undone the top of her bodice in a clear attempt to catch his attention. The man didn’t look like a rough soldier hungry for a quick tumble as a reward for a battle won.
He looked a little like someone in need of rescue.
Grace positioned herself directly between Archer and his ardent admirer. “Have you had enough to eat?” she asked him.
“Sleep,” he answered immediately. “I could use that more than anything. I’m tuckered out.”
He must have ridden through the night, or at least set out before dawn. After a morning checking their fortifications and an afternoon battling ghouls and vampires, it was no wonder he was weary. “Has Cecil shown you to a room yet?”
“No.” He rose, every line of his body taut weariness. “Would you be so kind?”
“Of course. I’m sorry, I should have thought.” She might have, if she hadn’t been avoiding him so carefully, still ashamed of how naked she felt under his knowing gaze.
Turning, she wove a path through the scattered tables to the far side of the room, where a pair of staircases ran along the back wall in opposite directions. The one on the right led to the balcony built high on three of the walls of the dining area, one lined with small doors leading to rooms that had served one purpose—one not conducive to sleep.
Grace took the staircase to the left, the one that disappeared into the closed area above the kitchen. Four doors stood along this hallway, each leading to a fine suite of rooms with a well-appointed bathroom and a steam-operated dumbwaiter that could deliver a hot meal straight from Cook’s kitchen.
“This one’s mine,” she told Archer, pressing her hand to the door closest to the staircase. “The others are empty. Cecil sleeps with Cook in her rooms behind the kitchen, and the children sleep together in the private dining room. We moved the beds there, since it’s the only room with no windows.”
Archer laid his hand on the door next to hers. “Is there an alarm system? Some sort of early warning in case of intrusion?”
Embarrassment flooded her, bringing heat to her cheeks. “The former owner of the saloon paid for one, but he died in the first raid. None of us are sure how to operate it. There’s a bit of calibration necessary and we didn’t…” She felt stupid, even if a schoolteacher wouldn’t have been expected to understand the intricacies of a Guild inventor’s work. “We nailed the windows shut.”
Archer only yawned and nodded. “I’ll look at it in the morning, but damned if I—I mean, I don’t know that
I’ll be able to do anything with it, either.”
His weariness roused a tenderness inside her vast enough to obscure her self-consciousness. “Would you like me to show you where everything is in your room?”
“I can manage, thank you.” He turned the knob but didn’t push open the door. “You’ll have to tell me the truth eventually, you know.”
Her heart pounded its way into her throat. “What truth?”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “Why you really didn’t leave.”
Not the truth she’d clutched so closely that even Diana didn’t know the whole of it, but a precious truth nonetheless. Perhaps one she could offer him, though. A token of her gratitude, and of her commitment. “Do you believe in redemption, Archer?”
He smiled, secret and knowing. “No. But for you, I might make an exception.”
That smile shook her. Melted her, turned her insides warm and liquid, and no one could fake innocence when she wanted to fall into a man just to remember what it felt like to be alive. “The border is about second chances.” She didn’t know if she was reminding him, or herself. “I’m a good schoolteacher. I’m almost a lady here.”
“And I’m a good bloodhound,” he murmured. “Nowhere near a gentleman, though. Remember that, Grace.”
How could she forget? “I know. Gentlemen don’t smile like that.”
“No, they don’t.” He slipped into the bedroom and closed the door behind him.
She couldn’t retreat to her bed, not when only a thin wall would separate them as they slept. How much privacy could such things afford her, when bloodhounds were said to have animal-sharp senses? Would he hear every too-quick breath, every betraying sigh?
Unsettled—and unaccountably aroused at the thought—Grace retreated down the stairs. Better to spend a few hours playing the part of the sweet, innocent schoolteacher than give in to the urges that had left her in such terrible need of redemption to begin with.
