Bloodstained Oz (8 page)

      “It makes no difference if it’s sweet or
hot. Just keep that rhythm, give it everything you’ve got.”

      A contented smile touched her lips and
she glanced down at Jeremiah’s cherubic face. His eyelids fluttered as he
struggled against sleep, but he was drifting away. His tiny mouth was slack,
lips in a pout, and a thin line of drool ran down his chin. Her heart swelled
with love and she felt almost giddy. There were times when nothing else
mattered but this moment, with her baby in her arms and the tangible certainty
of her love for him.

      “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got
that swing,” she said, voice dropping even lower now.

      Elisa stopped rocking the baby and
leaned back against the wall of the wagon. She sang under her breath, but the
words didn’t mean anything to her anymore. Another few minutes and she would
lay Jeremiah on the bed and go out to help Stefan clean up after dinner.
Perhaps they would sit by the remaining embers of their campfire. Perhaps they
would make love.

      She thought she would like that. It had
been too long since she had felt his hands upon her, rough and tender at the
same time.

      The night was hot, but a breeze whisked
through the open flaps on either end of the wagon. The horses were grazing
close by, but far enough away that the smell did not linger.

      Elisa did not want to stay in Kansas any
more. She missed the east. Truth be told, she missed the old country as well.
But anywhere else would do. Anywhere but here. Kansas had a blight upon it,
she thought. Stefan would not even consider leaving, however. His faith would
not allow it. He was convinced that God would provide, that the Lord did not
burden a man with more than he could handle.

      As she held her baby close, Elisa stared
around the back of the wagon at the images of Christ and of the Virgin Mother
that hung from the walls and the roof. A rosary dangled at the front, just
behind the opening that allowed passage from inside the wagon up to the
driver’s seat. And the crucifixes . . . there were nearly as many as there
were bottles of Romany Elixir. So many that anyone poking their head into the
back of the wagon would presume that the travelers sold crosses as well as
elixir. But they were not for sale. They were Stefan’s, symbols of his faith.

      Elisa did not believe in God. If He
existed, she was certain He cared not at all for ordinary people. Never in her
life had she felt any hint of His presence. Stefan insisted that Jeremiah was
proof, that the love she felt for her child was a part of God’s love, but Elisa
hated that notion. She and Stefan had made love and created a child between
them. Cows did the same thing, but didn’t presume God was paying them any
special attention.

      Her love was her own, and that was what
made it precious to her.

      Again her gaze swept the back of the
wagon. Stefan’s gun sat propped against the inside and she shuddered to look
at it, thinking of the lion they had seen that day. It seemed impossible to
her, but when she thought about it, she decided it must have escaped from some
traveling circus. Not that she’d heard of any such show passing through the
area, but what other explanation was there?

      A small snore came from the baby in her
arms. She laughed softly to herself and studied Jeremiah again. With her
right hand she brushed at the thickening hair on his scalp. Time to put him
down, now.

      “All right, my darling,” Elisa
whispered. She slid off of the bed and turned, putting the baby onto the bed.
There was a small cradle in the back of the wagon, but she rarely used it. She
and Stefan were thin enough that there was room for Jeremiah with them, and it
felt safe, having them both so close to her.

      With her son snoring lightly, Elisa
smoothed her skirt and went to the back of the wagon. Stefan had buried the
remains of their dinner in order to keep animals away, particularly after
they’d seen the lion. As she climbed out of the wagon, Elisa saw him walking
back from where the horses were grazing. It was getting cold, as it so often
did out on the plains at night, even when the summer days were at their
warmest. The fire flickered, beginning to die, and she considered throwing
some thistle onto the flames to make them last longer.

      “Jeremiah’s asleep,” she told her
husband.

      Stefan smiled at her and reached for
her. Elisa took his hand and let him pull her into an embrace. There by the
fire he held her, and she thought that perhaps life on the plains was not so
terrible after all, even with the storms and the traveling and the clash
between her husband’s faith and his willingness to say whatever was necessary
to sell his magical “elixir.” How he justified it, she did not know. It was
something—like her lack of belief in the Lord—that they avoided
discussing whenever possible.

      He kissed her neck.

      Elisa smiled and caressed his strong
back.

      Something rustled in the night, in the
darkness above them. There were no trees, no branches for the wind to blow
through, and so she thought it must be a bird. She frowned and pulled away
from him, and heard a strange chittering sound.

      An animal. Not a lion, certainly, but
not a bird, either.

      The horses whinnied and stamped their
feet, raising dust in the darkness thirty feet away.

      “Stefan,” she began.

      But he was not looking at her. His gaze
was focused past her, and Elisa turned to see what had drawn his attention.
Amazed, she could say nothing at first.

      A monkey sat on the ground perhaps a
dozen feet from them, light and shadow from the flickering fire playing across
its face. Elisa smiled, staring at it. Like the lion, she assumed it must
have escaped from some traveling circus. How strange and careless that such
beasts would be lost and left behind. She wondered how far they had traveled
across the parched plains.

      The monkey’s eyes were red. She
wondered if it was sick.

      She took a step toward it and Stefan
gripped her shoulder.

      “No. It could be dangerous.”

      Elisa was about to laugh, to argue with
him. It was only a monkey. But then the little thing hissed at him for
halting her, baring its teeth. They were remarkably long and sharp.

      Monstrously sharp.

      And then it spread its wings.

      The horses began to scream.

      “Elisa, get to the—“

     
The
baby!
she thought instantly, though she was sure he was going to say
wagon
.

      The monkey beat its wings and launched
into the air, chittering wildly, the sound like a devil’s diseased laughter.
It came right at her face and she raised her arms to defend herself, but Stefan
stepped in front of her, reached out and grabbed hold of one of the monkey’s
wings with his left hand, and its outstretched arms with his right.

      Elisa spun and ran, eyes searching the
darkness, the curtains of night that enveloped the wagon, for any other
unwelcome beast.
Wings
, she thought.
How could it have wings? How could such
a thing be born?

      And in the back of her mind, she thought
it just another shard of proof that God did not exist.

      One of the horses had broken its tether.
It galloped by, hooves pounding the dirt. Dark shapes clung to its hide,
wings spread, claws tearing at the horse’s flesh. Even as she ran, she glanced
over and saw one of the monkeys open its jaws impossibly wide and sink those
monstrous fangs into the horse’s throat . . . then it drew back with a powerful
lurch and the flesh was ripped noisily open. Blood gushed out onto the dry,
thirsty earth, splattering the winged monkey.

      The horse staggered and fell. The two
little monsters rode it down and began to feast.

      Elisa threw herself through the flaps at
the back of the wagon. The rifle fell over with a clatter and she grabbed it
in surprise and relief. On the bed, Jeremiah had begun to stir, arms and legs
moving, one hand pawing at his own face. His eyes scrunched tightly closed and
then his mouth opened and he began to wail.

      “No, baby. Hush, now,” she said, her
mind painting the most hideous pictures imaginable. How many of those things
were out there in the dark?

      Even as the thought went through her
mind she heard the flutter of wings and something heavy landed on top of the
wagon.

      Outside, Stefan screamed her name.

      “No,” Elisa whispered. Her skin was
flushed, her pulse skipping, pounding at her temples. For a moment she just
stood there, shaking, as the baby cried and once more her husband called out
her name.

      Then she was moving. Elisa scrambled to
the bed and scooped Jeremiah up in her arms. He stopped wailing for a moment
as he tried to nuzzle her breast, but denied that comfort, he began to cry
again. She went to the back of the wagon, rifle in hand. Somehow she managed
to cock the gun even as she held Jeremiah—no different in its way than
trying to cook with him in her arms, which she had done a hundred times.

      The weight up on top of the wagon’s roof
shifted. The wood creaked. Then the whole thing shook as the monkey leaped
away, the flutter of wings reaching her.

      Through the gap at the back of the
wagon, she saw it flying away. Toward the fire. Toward her husband.

      Stefan was grappling with the monkey.
One of its wings was broken, and he held it and twisted, but the thing had
gotten the better of him. The firelight danced over them and the monkey bared
its fangs, and for the first time, she understood what they were. In the old
country they had many names, but here they were called vampires.

      Impossible things.

      As she climbed out of the back of the
wagon she heard the other horse let out a final scream. In her mind’s eyes she
pictured it being brought down like the first. Her baby shrieked in her arms
and she knew that she had to protect him, no matter what.

      Only she could not do that. How could
she hold him and fire the rifle? How could she reload once she had fired?

      Stefan. She needed her husband.

      He roared, trying to beat the first of
the winged demons away from him, but then the second was upon him. Its claws
raked his flesh, tearing his shirt and the skin beneath.

      Elisa screamed his name and dropped to
the ground. Jeremiah squalled and beat his hands and feet at her, but she set
him down between her knees, shielding him just in case something else should
come for them.

      She leveled the rifle just as Stefan had
taught her, and she fired.

      The first monkey was knocked aside by
the bullet, its chest bursting open in a spray of blood and bone. The shot
took off one of Stefan’s fingers and he screamed, even as the second monkey
beat its wings so fiercely that it lifted him off his feet, carried him several
feet, and then drove him down to the ground, chittering that gleeful devil’s
laugh all the while, claws flashing, digging in.

      The one Elisa had shot stood up and
turned to glare at her, eyes gleaming red in the night, hissing. Even as she
watched, the bleeding stopped and its wound began to close.

      “No,” she tried to whisper, shaking her
head.

      All she felt was cold, now, as though
ice had begun to form around her. Except at her knees, where Jeremiah
squirmed. He was all that mattered now.

      From Stefan there came another scream
and when she glanced over she saw the winged demon stripping the flesh from his
face. A keening wail filled the air and at first she thought it was her baby.

      Then she realized it was her own voice.

      Elisa scooped Jeremiah up and staggered
back toward the wagon. Things flitted in the night sky above her and she could
not force herself to look up. The rifle was forgotten on the ground behind
her, useless. The baby went quiet in her arms but she felt his heart beating
rapid fire against her chest and knew it was terror that had silenced him.

      She reached the wagon, pushed back the
flaps, and began to climb inside.

      A screech stung her ears. Claws scraped
her shoulder and her arms. She felt the leathery wings of one of the monkey
things against the back of her neck as it attacked. With one hand she reached
up to bat it away, and only then did she realize her mistake.

      It was not after her. Not yet.

      The thing’s paws gripped Jeremiah’s arms
and tugged him from her arms. He slipped out so easily, as though she’d barely
been holding him at all. Elisa felt her heart go dead, clenching with
emptiness as she spun, screaming, and reached for her child.

      She grabbed her baby’s left leg. Hope
sparking inside her, desperate, mind on the brink of madness and knowing only
that she had to get Jeremiah back, she reached out and took hold of the other
leg.