The Gunslinger's Man (30 page)

It was no more comforting to be outside in the bedlam of a vampire-on-vampire skirmish. Asher had seen the like once before, but Redemption had been different. Flames had engulfed the town, casting every face into sharp focus. Here, the darkness was compact. Asher heard scuffles and gunshots, but he couldn’t hope to pinpoint their origin.

“Why are they shooting?” he panted, his throat scraped raw by the cries he couldn’t afford to let out. “Why not just…”
Do as you did.

Scanning their surroundings, Halloran exchanged his grip on Asher’s sleeve for a hand pressed to the small of his back. “You let a bloodsucker get too close, who knows what might happen.
Move
.”

Asher spurred his feet. His heart was lodged in his throat, his thoughts empty of all but the simplest instinct. Run. Survive. Kill or be killed. He didn’t quite believe the last one until a figure leaped into his path and the two vampires chasing it picked up the tattoo of his pulse beats.

Halloran shoved him back, but his presence was no deterrent. The vampires bared their fangs and dove for him, as agile as felines blessed with superhuman strength. They bore Halloran down into the dirt like a sack of potatoes.

The ground cracked beneath their bodies. Dust eddied around them, stinging Asher’s eyes. He raised a hand to shield his vision only to see, through the gaps between his fingers, that one had succeeded in breaking away.

“I remember you.” With blood smeared all over her face and fangs garishly displayed, Lucretia was unrecognizable until she spoke. “You
betrayed
us!”

Asher’s hands twitched at his sides. Lucretia would have turned Uncle Howard into her plaything and disposed of him once she was bored. It was hard to feel any remorse for robbing her of the opportunity.

“Not quite,” Asher rasped, “but I did put a bullet in your beloved mayor.”

The vampiress gave a piercing shriek and pounced. She moved like something out of a nightmare, the air barely stirring before her body slammed into Asher’s.

His brain rattled in his skull. Dimly, he thought he heard someone shout his name, then gunshots, but the praying mantis striving to pluck out his eyes proved slightly more pressing. He wrestled her back as best he could, shoving and kicking, parrying with his metal-plated arms whenever she made to bite him. He missed once—only once—and Lucretia latched on to his throat like a dog with a bone.

Asher cried out, fumbling blindly for some sort of weapon on the ground. A loose piece of rock slid into his palm, about the size of a coconut. He didn’t think of the dead vampire in the church as he brought it down hard on Lucretia’s temple. He didn’t think of anything beyond terror.

The blow wasn’t enough to kill Lucretia, but Asher managed to dislodge her long enough to press a hand to the wound in his throat. Blood seeped through his fingers, but he could still breathe. If not for the metal sewn into his flesh, she would have taken out his artery.

Shaking herself, Lucretia swung a bloodshot glare toward Asher.

The rock trick wasn’t going to work twice, so Asher threw the stone and tried to scramble to his feet. The ricochet reached his ears just as Lucretia grabbed his ankle.

He fell hard, smacking his chin on the ground. He’d been here before—at Willowbranch, with Halloran. His first attempted escape hadn’t quite worked out the way he’d hoped. Few of his plans ever did. He kicked blindly against Lucretia’s grip, putting every ounce of strength he still possessed into freeing himself.

It didn’t work. Lucretia hissed and tightened her grip, grinding the bones in his ankle against each other. On his sixth or seventh attempt, beginning to tire, Asher remembered what he’d seen Halloran do in the church and aimed his kick at her forearm rather than her hand or face.

Vampire bones were still bones. Lucretia’s cracked like snapped kindling.

Asher crawled away on elbows and knees, dragging himself to his feet against the wall of the church. By the time he braced for Lucretia’s next attack, there was no longer any need. Halloran stood above her, a pistol in his hand.

A thin filament of smoke rose from the barrel. Asher hadn’t even heard the gunshot.

Lucretia’s body shriveled in those horrible, final throes. The other vampire, the one Halloran had been wrestling with, was already a steaming puddle of viscera.

Halloran glanced up at him, gaze intent. “All right?”

Asher mustered a nod. Lucretia had barely scratched him. He was fine.

He had to look away from the thing that had once been Lucretia before he retched. The flurry of vampires darting in and out of sight served as distraction.

The worst of the fighting seemed contained around the town hall, though now and then someone would crash through a shop window or wind up jettisoned from a rooftop. It took Asher a moment to realize that Malachi had placed his men at altitude precisely so they could pick off the enemy as it blew into town. His loyal human thugs were as good as cannon-fodder for the surviving bloodsuckers who’d left Redemption before it had burned to the ground. His vampire acolytes seemed to be faring a little better, when they weren’t fleeing.

Someone whistled from across the square. Asher caught sight of moonlight reflecting off a shaved head.

“Blackjack,” he gasped in relief, and pointed.

All it took was a split second’s inattention.

“No!” Halloran shouted.

A pistol went off—had gone off—and by the time Asher cut his eyes across the square, Blackjack was already slipping from his saddle.

Even boosted with steel and copper, Asher’s human legs were still too slow to cover the distance. Halloran reached Blackjack first, gentling his fall before he hit the ground.

“Where is it, where is it—Asher, did you see where—”

“His chest…I think.”

Halloran took him at his word. Fabric tore beneath his hands, baring a near-hairless chest crisscrossed by a plethora of scars. Black blood gushed out of the space beneath his right lowermost rib.

“H-Halloran…” Blackjack raised a trembling hand.

“I got you, buddy. I got you, you’re gonna be fine. You’ll see,” Halloran panted, grimacing as he struggled to widen the wound. Vampire flesh wanted to seal together around the bullet, not knowing that it was silver. Unable to tell the difference between easing pain and sealing the poison inside, where it would spread outward as fast as flame over hooch.

“H-hh…” Convulsions seized Blackjack, agony twisting his features. The hand he’d raised quaked as though it took the very last of his strength to keep it up.

Asher followed its direction. The horse? The saddle? A sawed-off Spencer carbine hung from a strap. Asher seized it and checked the magazine. Seven rounds.

Seven
silver
-capped rounds.

Blackjack choked on a wet breath and let his arm drop to the ground.

“
No
. No, no, no… You’re not done yet. I got it out. I got it out!” Halloran grabbed Blackjack by the shirtfront, the silver bullet smoldering in his fist.

Blackjack’s head lolled back, no longer supported. The stench of charred meat filled the air.

“Halloran.” Asher squeezed the rifle with both hands. “
Halloran,
come on.”

“No, I can bring him back!”

“He’s gone!”

Another shot flew maybe an inch from Asher’s left ear. He heard the bullet slice through the air before it embedded itself into the hitching post.

Blackjack’s horse reared up in fright. Asher made to grab the reins when he saw the shooter on the roof of the saloon. He didn’t think. He took aim with the carbine and squeezed off two rounds.

The first one missed. The second did not.

Asher allowed himself a moment of gratification. But there would be others. If one set of enemies didn’t get them, Malachi’s men would.

“Halloran, we have to go.”

There was no response. He saw why as soon as he turned.

Where Blackjack had been a moment ago now there was only dust, blood and entrails. And Halloran, thrumming with a rage Asher would’ve quite happily died without ever encountering.

“Halloran, please…”

Their eyes met. Halloran bared his fangs.

Chapter Thirty-Six

“Goddamn it,” Asher swore under his breath. “
Halloran!
”

There was little point in calling out to him. The evening gloom had swallowed Halloran up, his innate speed fueled by whatever had been in Uncle Howard’s smuggled vials.

Grief did the rest.

Asher scrubbed a hand over his brow. Beads of sweat slid down his temples. He had only five rounds left and no idea how many vampires still to shoot. No idea where they were, either. Now and again a scream pierced the night, making his blood run cold. The silence was worse.

Worst of all, he was on his own.

Staying here ain’t helping.

He’d taken shelter behind the trough outside the saloon, his back to the town square because he couldn’t stand to see the place where Blackjack had fallen. The view down Main Street wasn’t much better. The bodies of those trampled in the stampede had been left to rot in the open like road kill. Flies buzzed over them, audible in the dark.

The shadow of death hung low over Sargasso. Even the moon didn’t dare show its face.

Asher flexed his hands around the rifle.
Should have taken Blackjack’s horse when I had the chance. Should’ve fled.
But the animal had torn free of the hitching post and vanished into the night, robbing him of the opportunity. Different horse, same problem.

Halloran had disappeared, too, likely on a rampage through the dark alleys.

The scrape of boots on creaking floorboards distracted Asher from the lure of self-pity. He pricked his ears, every muscle locking in anticipation. Two sets of footsteps, he surmised, moving slowly through the saloon—human, because no vampire he’d encountered tonight had been so circumspect. Another couple of feet and they’d be on the wrong side of the swinging doors.

If he was quick on the reload, Asher would have one shot at each. If he wasn’t—he wasn’t going to think about that.

He twitched a leg under him and did his best to quell fear with clear-headedness. He hadn’t made it this far for Malachi’s men to shoot him dead.

The saloon door swung open with a creak of hinges.

Asher pushed up with his knees, swinging the carbine at his targets. His half-metal finger danced over the trigger. He only barely aborted the impulse to squeeze down when he registered Connie’s familiar face.

Uncle Howard hadn’t been telling tales. She
was
alive. She was here. Relief slackened Asher’s grip on the rifle.

“Connie—”

Beside her, Wesley raised his pistols high, muzzles pointed straight at Asher.
He
didn’t waver.

Two bursts of gunfire echoed near simultaneously. Asher flinched, but it was too late. Something wet and warm splashed his back. He only saw the vampire once he’d spun around.

The creature had been less than two feet away and about to grab him. It no longer had hands to do it with.

“We need to get off the street,” Wesley growled. “There’ll be more where that came from.”

“How?” Asher blurted, words refusing to unstick themselves from his throat.

When he failed to move fast enough, Connie grabbed him by the hand and tugged him along. “I’ll explain later.”

“Or, novel idea, he could start by explaining what the
fuck
he’s done to this town,” Wesley muttered, reloading as they ran.

“Is it true that Ambrose is dead?” Connie panted.

That question, at least, Asher could easily answer. “Yes.” Dead, gone and replaced by his equally psychotic progeny. “Don’t thank me yet.”

“Wasn’t goin’ to,” Wesley snorted just in time to avoid a burst of glittering glass shards. “Shit!”

“They’re on the rooftops,” Asher put in, grabbing for Wesley’s gun. “Here, use this!”

The carbine had shoddy aim at a distance, but it beat a revolver. And Asher could reload it faster.

Wesley braced against the telegraph office door and took the shot. “Always said you had girlish hands.”

“Damn you very much.” Asher thrust one of the pistols into Connie’s hands as they scrambled inside. He couldn’t load both guns at once.

His growl seemed to amuse Wesley. “Where’s lover boy?”

“Halloran?”

“Yeah, him… Woulda thought he’d be chasing after you through this hell.”

He was.
Asher shook his head. Part of him wanted nothing more than to crumble to the ground and wait for Halloran to find him as he always did. The rest knew that would be a death sentence. As long as rabid vampires were about, no four walls were cover enough.

“Don’t suppose you got any more ammo?” Wesley asked, focusing at last on what mattered. “We’re runnin’ a little low.”

“Still some bullets in the shop.” But that was all the way across town, on the far side of God only knew how many more critters. “What’re you gonna do? Try and shoot your way out?”

Wesley snorted, the dirt and dried blood caked on his face cracking like a mask. “Hear that, Connie? Shoot our way out. That’s funny. That’s real funny.” A mad sort of excitement burned in his eyes when he looked back at Asher. “Nah, boy. We’re ridding this town of bloodsuckers once and for all.”

Asher swung his gaze to Connie, who wasn’t laughing.

“We’re not fleein’ again,” she said, resigned but firm.

“But—”

“Here we go!” With the butt of the rifle, Wesley carved himself a makeshift embrasure out of the grimy telegraph office window.

The ruckus was much too loud for the two vampires brawling it out in the street not to hear. One snapped its head up.

It was the last thing it ever did.

Connie’s hand didn’t even shake as she picked off the other with a generous three shots to the chest.

Asher flinched from the shrieks that followed. “Christ! What’re you—”

“This is war,” Wesley snapped. “And it’s what you wanted.”

“Reload that,” Connie added for good measure, helping herself to Asher’s pistol.

He stared at the back of her head in utter bemusement. Where was the girl who’d once taken him to task for chasing lizards? Where was the Connie who’d consented to be the wife of a man whose greatest ambition was to bow and scrape before Ambrose?