Night of the Vampires (29 page)

As the three of them went down Church Street, one of the general's aides saw them coming and rushed into the headquarters. Before they even reached the door, General Bickford was in the street, walking toward her.

“Megan! How are you here—alone?”

“I ran out, General, because I'm familiar with this type of terrain, and because, frankly, we all know the men wouldn't concede on their own to let me come. This is Daniel, from the mountain. He helped get me here.” She took a moment to catch her breath. “Please, sir, it's imperative that we get men up to the heights immediately. The troop has done well, but the—the
nest,
the core of the clan, the real monsters—
are
up on the heights. They have to have help.”

General Bickford looked at her gravely for just a split second before calling out an order. “Do it! We'll take twenty men—Company A—armed and out of here in a hour!” He looked at his aide. “Get Lieutenant Dawson, and get it done!”

“Yes, sir!” the man replied, and ran off to do as bidden.

“Daniel, eh?” Bickford said, looking at the young man accompanying Megan and the priest.

“Daniel Whitehall, sir, at service in this battle,” Daniel said.

Megan noted that he didn't say “at
your
service.” Bickford noted it, too, probably.

“And you know the terrain, eh?” Bickford asked.

“Like the back of my hand, sir!”

“Fine. You'll lead. You, young lady, will get into my quarters and get some rest. We'll handle it from here.”

“No, please, I have to go back,” she told him. “General, this is what I do!”

“Inside and upstairs, young lady, and there are no two ways about it. I'm the general, and you will take orders.”

She thought about arguing; it would be useless.

She looked at Daniel, and she knew that he was aware she could easily slip out when she chose and beat them all there.

“I'll take a wagon up the road for the holy water,” he said. “Father Costello has been filling vials nightly.”

“Do it, son,” Bickford said, and Daniel turned with Father Costello to carry out the task.

Megan left them and went to the general's quarters and up the stairs, figuring she would have to escape Lisette Annalise and Trudy Malcolm.

But neither woman was there.

She paced restlessly, watching the preparations from the window, and waiting. At last, the multitude of men, heavily armed with the unique weapons, rode out of town. She watched them go, and restlessly, she waited.

She wondered again where Lisette might be, hoping she wouldn't reappear at a most inopportune time.

Then she remembered her dream. Her dream of Lisette Annalise walking toward Cole.

And she knew that she had to hurry.

 

B
OTH
H
ENRY AND THE DRUMMER BOY
had been removed from the clearing in front of the chapel. They rested now, a true rest, in the graveyard—albeit it in pieces.

As the first hours of the morning went by, Cole ordered the men to eat and rest the best they could. With Megan gone for reinforcements, he had taken the supplies they were going to need in from the packhorse, but filled the bags and boxes the horse carried with various pieces of ripped-up lumber from the chapel, so that whoever—or whatever—watched them would think that the troop was still preparing to move.

“When will it come, Cole?” Sergeant Newcomb asked him.

“Not for a while, I don't believe. They'll wait a few hours, thinking that we're still preparing to get down the mountain. Rest. Get all the rest that you can.”

Newcomb shook his head. “Megan,” he said mournfully. “She'll never make it.”

“Yes, she might.”

“Why did she go? Why did she risk herself so?” Newcomb demanded.

Cole answered him quietly, but with conviction. “She felt that she had to, Sergeant. She felt that she had to. And she might have been right.”

The sun rose to its zenith. Noon came, and went. As it did, the men were weary enough to rest and doze at their positions.

“Anytime now,” Cole began to warn them. “They'll realize that we're not leaving and there's not enough daylight left to get down the mountain. They'll come at any time.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before
Gerald Banter let out a cry. “From the west, from the west—they're coming!”

Megan wasn't with them to reinforce the alternate sides of the church as she had before. Cole had to trust Newcomb to take the front and hurry from window to window as the attacks came at them in swift fury. Cole used arrows as long as he could, but the enemy was coming at him far too quickly and managing to get far too close for them to suffice, no matter how swiftly he shot. He was forced to cast down the weapon, and take up with a bayonet, striking savagely and furiously again and again, all while keeping his distance. His arms ached; the bayonet attacks wounded, but didn't kill, and he had to keep both arms and hands moving at immense speeds as he plunged and cut and then made strategic use of the holy water.

The dead piled up at the windows. Others continued to use their arrows. Sometimes their arrows struck but didn't kill, and the beings would rise again and head for the windows. Sometimes Cole dared reach out to stake them, and sometimes he did not. Sometimes he used precious holy water, and sometimes he was able to stab savagely through their hearts and then quickly retreat before a counterattack came.

One flew through a window at Cole—its arm was quickly hacked off as Newcomb brought down his ax head. Cody impaled another flying creature hovering just outside the window with a stake from his right hand, and managed to catch a wounded one with a vial of holy water from the other.

After a few more tense moments, the attack ceased.

All was quiet.

“Hold, boys. Hold—and be ready,” Cole said.

Another hour passed. The men were tiring, the tension of waiting adding to their exhaustion.

Newcomb gripped his arm and looked at Cole. “If they take me, if I'm…injured, you'll do what needs to be done?”

“They're not going to take you, Newcomb. We have to believe. Have faith.”

Newcomb grimaced. “If you're first, I'll do you the same courtesy.”

Then, he was stunned by the plaintive sound of a feminine voice at the door. “Hello! Cole, Newcomb—Dickens! What is going on here? Where is everyone?”

Cole quickly moved to look out the window. To his utter amazement, Lisette Annalise, beautiful in her riding outfit, sidesaddle atop a fine mount, was in the clearing before the chapel, her assistant, the ever-suffering Trudy Malcolm, just beyond her on a far less pretentious steed.

“Jesus, save me!” Newcomb muttered. “In the midst of all this, that woman makes it up to the mount? Is she insane?”

Newcomb started toward the door. Cole caught his arm. The other men were rising, Dickens among them. He came forward quickly. “Sir, we've got to get her in here, quickly! Those things could come back at any time. And she can shoot—I've seen her. She's here now, we've got to get her in and tell her the score!”

“No, stop! I'll go out to cover them, and if anything happens, you men get the door shut and barred again, and pray that more men get here!” Cole commanded.

Newcomb pulled the pew-bolt from the door and Cole
opened it. He waited for Lisette to dismount and come to the door.

“Cole Granger, what is the matter with you? I've come up here, and you don't even come out to assist a lady? Good Lord, you boys need all the smart help you can get, and this is how you behave?”

Cole didn't answer. He pulled a vial of holy water from his inner coat pocket and threw it into Lisette's face.

 

I
T HAD SEEMED
a greater effort to
change
again, but it was an even greater effort to move through the air. But Megan was determined, and desperate.

The men had all been warned.
Cole
had been warned. And yet they all knew Lisette well, and that she had come at the command of the Pinkerton Agency—and Pinkerton often worked directly through the White House—so they would never have suspected that she could be the demon moving so easily among them.

Megan was exhausted. She could barely will herself through the air, barely concentrate to create the shadow wings needed to propel herself faster. She didn't see the troops, and she didn't know how long the journey was taking her now, only that the landscape was moving by far too slowly.

At last, she passed the troops making their way in haste.

And after what felt like an eternity later, she saw the chapel before her.

She might be too late.

 

N
OTHING HAPPENED
.

At least, nothing that he expected happened.

Lisette stood there, sputtering, staring at Cole with incredulous indignation. “Cole Granger, what on earth is the matter with you? You may be a sheriff in Texas, but I swear, I'll see your ears pinned to your head in D.C.! Lord Almighty, what are men coming to?” she demanded belligerently.

Cole stared at her blankly.

Dickens went running by him, ready to make amends. “Miss Annalise, forgive him, we've just been through hell up here—hell, I do mean
hell!
” he told her. “You come right on in and I'll get you a cloth to dry your face, dear lady. Oh, Miss Malcolm, you come right in, too, please!”

“Cole Granger!” Lisette said furiously. She had dismounted and stood near the door. Trudy was still on her horse, shocked and waiting.

“Something is not right,” Cole said, staring at her.

“You idiot bastard!” she said. “Trudy, get down here and let's get in. I don't believe this! Cole Granger, I'm warning you—”

“We've got to get in!” Dickens warned. “This isn't the time. Please, please, all of you! Trudy, come, please!”

“Something is not right,” Cole said again.

“Dickens is right, damn it, move!” Lisette ordered haughtily.

But Cole stood there, wary, still staring at Lisette, and Lisette staring back at him with indignation and fury.

“Hurry!” Dickens urged. “Trudy, please, come!”

Trudy dismounted, clearly made meek and disturbed by the situation as she moved to join them. She looked uneasily from Cole to Lisette.

“All right, yes, let's get in!” Lisette said.

Dickens started toward Trudy, wanting to hurriedly get her inside while Cole dealt with the wrathful Lisette.

But it was then—as Cole stood, jaw locked, his peripheral vision on the sky as he wondered how he could be wrong—that the truth began to dawn on him.

“No!” he said, turning to catch Trudy Malcolm.

She'd been with the vampire child, Betsy, alone, and the child hadn't hurt her but gone straight for Megan. Lisette had searched her assistant, but she wouldn't have shown signs of a bite—because Trudy had been bitten long, long ago.

It was amazing how the woman could change so quickly, and so entirely. Suddenly, she wasn't stooped. She wasn't frumpy, and she wasn't downtrodden. She was tall and her eyes bore a malicious light of pleasure, cruelty and brutality.

Cole couldn't stop her. Trudy burst past Lisette, slamming Newcomb with a backhanded swipe that sent him flying across the chapel. “Trudy, how
dare
you!” Lisette cried. “Oh!” she gasped, seeing the true picture in a moment of sick realization. The chapel door was open, and the sky came alight then with winged shadow creatures, all of them trying to force their way into the small church.

“Get down!”
Cole shouted to Lisette, and she dropped to the ground, covering her head, as though that might help when the hungry came for her.

Trudy Malcolm, having worn the best mask possible, was now in the chapel in her true form—powerful and potent and clearing the way for more of the creatures to enter. Cole took up a position at the doorway, trying to stop the onslaught. One of the dark animals nearly landed on Lisette, but he was able to stop the creature with holy
water. He raced to the horses, grabbing a cavalry sword from a saddle holster, and raced back into the fray, believing that slicing through the frenzy around him would stop the onslaught enough to give the others a chance.

But, apparently, Trudy Malcolm was set on bringing him down first. She burst out of the chapel in a cloud of black-winged fury, and she lit on the ground just feet away from him. “Ah, there he is! The great Texas lawman, dabbling his feet in Union waters. It's a pity I can't just let someone hang you as a traitor.”

“Are you
fighting for the South?
” Cole asked her, weighing his chances as they circled one another.

“Me? Not particularly. Smart boy—I was pretty sure you had it all figured out. But you seemed to think it had something to do with Megan, that pathetic creature. I saw how your mind was working. No, no, you've missed what I would think is obvious. The country is busy killing itself. I'm just adding to the death toll, letting the fevered feed on the fevered, that's all. Eventually, it will be all one country again—my country.”

“That's insane. What do you want with a country?” he asked her.

“The history of all empires is building a feeding ground,” she said. “You killed the girl, and the little drummer boy. They were the beginning of my family, but that's all right, you see. I'll just pick and choose better and create the world I want to live in. It will still take some time, Cole, but I'm up to the task. And in the meanwhile I'll be—I've
been
—so amused, watching the way men kill men. Seriously, how can you think of
me
as a beast?”

“Because the men who die believe in a greater cause,
Trudy. It's tragic, but they fight for what they believe in. You kill for yourself,” Cole told her.

“Oh, you are going to be delicious!” She paused for a moment, pouting. “Where is your delightful little girlfriend, Cole? I had imagined pinning her down first, and letting her see how a real woman handles a real man!” She laughed.