Dead Roses for a Blue Lady (29 page)

"How far—how far down do you think we are?" Cade gasped as he bent over to catch his breath.

"I'd say at least four, maybe five thousand feet," she replied. "And I don't care if you swore a blood oath on a stack of Bibles ten feet tall, I'm not taking you any farther. You need air, Vasek doesn't."

"What about you?"

"I can take it or leave it, "she replied, shrugging her shoulders.

There was a sound of loose pebbles sliding underfoot. Cade froze.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yeah," she replied. "They're close."

"Sheriff..."
The voice was frail and querulous, sounding frightened and lost in the darkness.
"Sheriff Cade...help me...
"

"That's Maisie Cowpers."

Sonja shook her head. "It just
sounds
like her."

"You don't know for sure," he shot back. "Besides, I thought it took three days and nights for a human to resurrect as a vampire."

"God damn it, who told you that? Peter Gushing?" Sonja spat in disgust. "We're not

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) talking hard rules like in Monopoly! Sometimes it only takes a few hours for the host body to be taken over."

The scrambling sound came again, this time from a different direction. An elderly woman dressed in a tattered and filthy housecoat lurched out of one of the connecting tunnels.

Her silver hair was in disarray and she groped her way through the darkness, her arms extended in front of her like a child playing blind man's bluff.

"Sheriff Cade...where are you? It's so dark...I can't see anything...where am I? I'm so afraid! Please...I want to go home!"

"It's okay, Maisie," Cade said, smiling comfortingly, even though she could not see his face. "You're safe now." He took the old woman's elbow in his hand.

Mrs. Cowpers' head whipped around, the look of fear and confusion on her face replaced by a demonic grin, her eyes gleaming in the dark like those of a sewer rat.

Her dentures flew out of her mouth, displaced by the fangs that sprang from her barren gums like spring-loaded darts.

"God damn it, Cade!" Sonja snarled as she pulled the werewolf free of the vampire's clutches. "What the fuck is the point of bringing me down here if you're going to ignore
everything
I tell you? Now get out of the way and let me do my job!"

Sonja rammed her switchblade into the vampire's sternum, going up under the ribs to skewer the heart like a black olive. The thing that used to be Mrs. Cowpers screeched like a cat with its tail caught in a door and dropped to the ground, where it twitched and flopped about at their feet like a shark on a hook.

Cade grimaced as the old woman's skin blackened and peeled away from her skull, revealing a naked mass of muscle and bone.

"Sorry you had to see that. Silver poisoning isn't a pretty sight," Sonja said.

"Thanks," Cade said, swallowing the bile crowding the back of his throat. "Next time
I
promise
I'll listen."

"Fuck this sneaking around in the dark!" Sonja snarled, kicking the liquefying mass that used to be Maisie Cowpers.
"We
know he's down here,
he
knows we're down here!" She threw back her head, arms opened wide, as if inviting attack, and shouted at the cathedral-like ceiling.
"Vasek!"
The vampire's name echoed throughout the tunnels honeycombing the mountainside.
"Show yourself, you bastard."

A voice spoke in the darkness, although it was impossible for Cade to pinpoint exactly where it was coming from. " I see you brought the local law with you. I'm quaking in my boots."

"You
better
be, asshole!" Cade growled. "If I don't walk out of here alive and in one piece, my friends up top are under orders to bring this over glorified prairie dog town down around your ears! Now show yourself like the lady asked!"

"As you wish, Sheriff," Vasek sighed.

A tall, gaunt figure dressed in the tattered remains of a fashionable Italian suit, now grimed with mud and gore, stepped out from behind a nearby outcropping. Vasek's face was as pale as a winter moon, save for his lips, which were full and wetly red, as if he had just feasted on fresh raspberries. His cheekbones were as sharp as the blade of a knife and a white pigtail hung between his shoulders like an albino snake. The vampire stood and stared at them with eyes that shone like glasses of claret held before a fire as he nervously dry-washed his hands, the fingers of which were as long as knitting needles.

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"Your little escape plan didn't turn out like you figured, dead boy," Sonja said, taking a step towards her prey. "You've got more than me to contend with now."

"I'm
so
frightened!" Vasek sneered.

"You arrogant stiff—!" Sonja laughed humorlessly, shaking her head in disbelief. "Take
a
good look
at my buddy here, worm bait. Now tell me what you see."

Vasek frowned, but did as Sonja said, focusing his attention on Cade. The vampire's eyes widened in alarm and he took an involuntary step backward. "
Vargr!"
he hissed.

"Bingo!" Sonja grinned. "And not merely a loner or a mated pair, either. You brought your little road show slap-dab in the middle of a pack, dead boy! You queered your own game before it had a chance to get started! There's only room in this county for one species of super-predator, Vasek—and these guys called dibs!"

Vasek took yet another step backward, his arms held close to his body as if in fear of accidental contact, a look of angry disbelief on his sallow features.
"Kill them!"
he shouted at no one in particular.
"Destroy them!"

The cavern floor underneath Cade's feet exploded in a shower of dirt as a hand, the fingers as white as grubs, burst through the soil and grabbed his shin. Cade looked down and saw the loose dirt slough away, revealing Nate Ferguson's face, pale as death, grinning up at him. The rancher's eyes were red as traffic lights and his canines as long and curved as a wild cat's fangs.

"Let go of him, dead boy!" Sonja snarled, punting Nate Ferguson's head like a place-kicker going for a goal, her boot smashing the vampire's skull like a rotten watermelon.

As Sonja tried to shake Nate Ferguson's clotted brains off her foot, a second figure lurched from one of the tunnels, its fangs bared. A couple of days ago the vampire had been an extreme sports enthusiast looking for a rugged mountain trail to explore, and was still dressed in his elbow pads, and a half-shell crash helmet. Sonja easily sidestepped the erstwhile mountain biker, severing his spinal cord with a single flick of her knife. The vampire made a pathetic bleating sound, like that of a frightened goat, and collapsed in a pile of twitching, flailing limbs.

Sonja spun to face Vasek, her hands wet with the cold, black blood of the undead. She pointed a dripping finger at the vampire lord and grinned; "You're next, dead man!"

As Sonja advanced upon him, Vasek's impassive mask cracked and the vampire shrieked and disappeared into one of the mine's many passageways. Sonja bounded after him like a hound after the fox. She chased Vasek through the perpetual midnight of the tunnels, his milk-white pigtail waving in the darkness before her like a truce flag, until the passageway opened onto yet another gallery, although nowhere as grand as the one he had chosen for his nesting ground.

Although Vasek was nowhere to be found, she did spot a pickaxe and a large canvas bag propped against one of the walls. The canvas bag had 'Property Of Wiley Simms' stenciled on it in big block letters.

Frowning, she moved closer to investigate. As she bent down to retrieve the bag, Vasek grabbed her from behind, raking at her eyes with one hand while he dug his knitting needle-like fingers into the inner elbow of her knife-arm, his nails piercing the leather jacket like it was made of tissue paper. Sonja cried out as her right arm went numb from shoulder to fingertips, the switchblade falling from her spasming fingers. Cackling gleefully, Vasek knocked the switchblade out of reach with a powerful kick of his Italian

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) half boot.

"That's all I'm ever going to take from you, bitch!" he snarled, hurling Sonja to the ground with a single shove. "Who do you think you are, chasing me—Lord Vasek!—from pillar to post as if I were some form of vermin to be exterminated! You kill my minions! You destroy my gets! You even bring a damned
vargr
into my lair! What matter of monster
are
you, woman?"

"I'm the one that's going to kill you, you bloodsucking son of a bitch!" she growled.

"Why you nasty little impertinent upstart! Just for that, I'm going to tear off your head and shove it up your cunt!"

Sonja didn't doubt for a moment that Vasek was perfectly willing and able of making good on his threat. Her right arm still hung numb and useless at her side.

"But first I think I will pluck out your eyes out and use them for marbles!" The vampire lord said with a grin, his long fingers twitching like the legs of an Alaskan king crab as he leaned over her.

"Fuck you, freak!" Sonja spat, using her good arm to throw a fistful of loose dirt into the vampire's face.

Vasek chuckled as he wiped the dirt from his face. "Come now, my dear. Is that the best you can do?"

A deep, racking cough abruptly replaced Vasek's chuckle. The vampire put a hand to his mouth and it came away sticky. Vasek stared in open bafflement at the black, stinking blood coating his palm, then touched his face, to discover that the ichor was pouring from his nose like stout from a freshly tapped keg. Vasek's neck began to swell so rapidly it was as if his throat was being filled with air from a bicycle pump. The swelling continued until his face and head resembled an over-inflated water balloon, his eyes and nostrils reduced to narrow slits through which blood and other less identifiable fluids oozed in a steady stream. The flesh covering the vampire's head tore like sodden tissue paper, dropping away in great, wet sheets, exposing the gleaming bone and tendons underneath. With a final, ultra-sonic shriek of agony, Vasek collapsed onto the floor of the mine, the shock of the impact sending spinal fluid squirting out his ears.

Sonja got to her feet, staring in rapt fascination at the dying vampire sprawled before, her.

Using her good arm, she picked up Wiley's canvas prospector's bag and managed to flip the pouch open. She stared at the ore samples inside, and then back at Vasek, who was already starting to trickle out of his suit.

"Sonja! Ms. Blue
—
where are you?'
Cade's voice echoed through the mine. The young werewolf sounded very concerned. "I'm over here, sheriff!" she shouted back in answer.

"Are you okay?"

"My right arm is hurt, but I'm fine!"

"What about Vasek?"

"He's dead!"

"Stay put! I'm on my way!'

"No! Don't come any further than you already have! It's dangerous for you down here! "

"Why? What's wrong?'

"What kind of mine did you say this was?"

"
Copper!'

"Not anymore! It's a
silver
mine, now!"

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"Are you sure you won't stay a little longer, Sonja?" Cade asked one final time as they stood outside the general store. The sun had yet to rise and the mountain air was crisp enough that his words were accompanied by little puffs of smoke.

Sonja stood beside Uncle Billy's truck, one hand resting on the door handle. Cissy was seated behind the wheel of the pick-up; Cully huddled in the bed like a concrete Buddha as their passenger said her final good byes.

"You needn't worry. My arm's completely recovered. Besides, its time I went back to work."

"You don't have to leave at all, you know.

"I appreciate the offer, sheriff," Sonja said. "But I'm afraid I'm not ready to settle down to the country life. At least, not yet. As it is, Nonesuch is going to have its hands full trying to figure out what to do with a brand spanking new silver mine."

"That's God's own truth if ever it was spoke. I reckon Wiley must have struck that vein by sheer accident. Poor bastard spent his life lookin' to strike it rich, and what does he get for his trouble?" Uncle Billy sighed, shaking his head. "Poor bastard. But Skinner's right, ma'am—you're always welcome here."

"You sure about that? You haven't seen me on one of my bad days. There is something like Vasek inside me, only it's a lot meaner."

"You're not telling any of us something we don't already know," Cade said. "There is something dark in each and every one of us here, Human and Pretender alike. But we have all made the decision to not allow it to rule our lives. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail. But at least we try. You and I are not so different, Sonja. We both fight to maintain our humanity in the face of monstrosity. And, in the end, that is all any of us have got."

Sonja flashed a sad, sweet smile as she clasped Cade's hand in her own. "You're a good man, Skinner Cade, werewolf or not. I wish you luck with your town and your family."

"Come back and see us some time."

She paused as she climbed into the passenger seat beside Cissy and glanced at him one last time. "Perhaps I'll do that—say in another thirty years or so? It would be nice to find out how far along Nonesuch will have come."

"It's a date," Cade said, touching the brim of his hat. "See you in thirty."

"Yeah. See you then."

She got into the truck and slammed the door shut. Cissy threw the transmission into gear and the pick-up jounced its way down the dirt road that passed for Nonesuch's main street, headed in the direction of Santa Fe.

Cade watched until the truck disappeared from sight, then turned his gaze to the sky above, which was still filled with stars without number. Nonesuch had faced the first true threat to its existence, and it had survived the encounter. He was not so naive as to believe it would be the last. Maybe the next danger would wear a human face; maybe it would have no face at all. In any case, it would have to deal with him if it wanted to start trouble in his town. He tossed his head back, sniffed the brisk morning air, and caught the scent of sausage links frying in the pan coming from his house. He grinned and dropped down onto all fours and loped back to his home and his wife and children, tongue lolling in anticipation of breakfast.