Chapter Eleven

 

 

 

Phantom fingertips danced, icy, over Asher’s skin. They slipped under his shirt and stroked down the knobs in his spine like a lover’s caress. An unwanted caress. He shivered as the distinction, now foggier than ever, lugged his thoughts back to Willowbranch. He couldn’t say how many miles separated him from his former prison, only that the sun was beginning to creep over the edge of horizon and soon the whole valley would be awake.

If Asher’s absence hadn’t been noted yet, it would be before long.

He shuddered to think of Halloran’s response.

“We’ll let the horses rest beyond the next ridge,” Connie said, the wind carrying her voice back to Asher.

He hadn’t meant to fall to the rear of their little group, but Halloran’s stallion was an unwieldy beast and didn’t much care for its new rider. It dragged its feet sullenly as the other horses obediently leaped forward on either side and, if Asher got any bright ideas about trying to spur him on, threatened to rear up on its hind legs.

Like rider, like mount. Asher had quickly learned to submit himself to the animal’s whims. As long as they were moving, the speed of their progress didn’t have much bearing on their chances.

The next pleat in the landscape emerged from the crenulated terrain like a serrated knife, its teeth crumbling beneath blustery gales and bright sunshine. They had passed out of their vale some time ago. Asher recognized the road to Redemption, the closest neighboring town not connected to Sargasso by rail. On his previous visits there, he had always traveled by the common route, never cutting across the wasteland like this, never exposing himself to roving bands of bandits and coyotes.

The common, well-traveled route was out of the question tonight.

Connie dismounted at the base of the canyon and took her chestnut by the reins. “Charlie says there’s a watering hole halfway up. We’ll have to go on foot, though.”

“Charlie?” Asher repeated, bemused. “Charlie Wheeler?”

Wesley swung himself to the ground. “How do you think we knew to come get you?”

“But I thought…” I thought he was Blackjack’s creature. I thought he was just fine and dandy with the Riders keeping me locked up. Asher hadn’t even held it against him. Who was he to Charlie Wheeler that his captivity should make a dent?

Uncle Howard drew up alongside and patted awkwardly at his arm. “I know you have questions, son…”

“You got no idea.” But Asher lowered himself gingerly out of saddle and followed with Halloran’s horse in tow. They were both too tired to dig their heels in.

After a brief, winding climb in and out of cavernous tunnels that unsettled the horses and didn’t exactly put Asher at ease, Connie brought them to a hidden bit of greenery at the heart of which susurrated a timid stream.

Water trickled through the cracks in one red boulder and splashed across several others before vanishing once again into rock. The standing pool carved into hewn sandstone was barely a foot deep and only about six wide, but it was more than enough to slake a man’s thirst.

Wesley filled canteens while Connie spread out their provisions on the ground and took stock of what little inventory they had.

“We couldn’t risk packing more,” Uncle Howard explained, when he caught Asher observing Connie’s efforts. “It would have attracted suspicion.”

There was very little food and even fewer guns and ammunition. Uncle Howard’s pack contained a flask, though, which they passed around to ward off the cold.

“To be honest, I’m surprised you even have this much… How did you get away?” Asher asked, then promptly shook his head. “No, scratch that. How are you still alive? I thought… I thought you were all massacred.”

“Some of us were,” Wesley confirmed, staring balefully into the flickering light of the small campfire he’d been able to coax out of twigs and bunchgrass.

“Ambrose wanted an example made of the conspirators,” Connie explained, “but he couldn’t afford culling too many of us. The rest were made to watch as he went biblical on the unlucky few.” She hugged her sides, shuddering with some other sensation than the cold. “Then he sent us back into our homes. I don’t think anyone’s had a good night sleep in Sargasso since.”

“Who was it?” Asher bit out.

Uncle Howard sighed. “My boy, there’s no sense in torturing yourself—”

“Who?”

His uncle’s objection gave way to a downturned mouth. It was Wesley who rattled off the names. Twelve in total.

Biblical, indeed.

“One for every rider,” Wesley said, “and the other five for you.” His sharp gaze cut Asher to the quick.

Asher looked away first. His throat had locked tight, which was just as well. The last thing Wesley and Connie needed was his apologies.

Uncle Howard clasped his shoulder with a soft, careful hand. “It’s done now. Ambrose is a monster. All of Sargasso knows it. No one can blame you for wishing to rid us of him once and for all.”

“Can’t they?” Asher muttered into the neck of the flask. It was nearly empty, but there was enough left to douse the feverish, angry hurt in the pit of his stomach.

“There’s no hope in Sargasso.” Wesley’s tone vibrated with self-assurance. “We may be the first ones to flee, but we ain’t the last.”

“What about your families?” Asher glanced at Connie. “Your father? Shit, your fiancé!”

“My fiancé?” Connie threw her head back with a mirthless laugh. “Oh, my dear, beloved Eugene thinks Ambrose is a good vampire taking a firm stand against rebels. After everything we witnessed, he actually wanted the mayor to officiate our wedding.”

“I’m sorry,” Asher said, because he was. He might have envied Eugene his good fortune in catching Connie’s eye, but he’d never wished for them to break off their engagement. Connie had been so happy.

Well. As happy as anyone’s ever been under a madman’s boot heel.

“My father knew the risks,” Connie went on, as if she hadn’t registered Asher’s show of regret. “My mother all but encouraged me to go. I tried to convince them to join us… They wouldn’t.”

“Aren’t they afraid of what Ambrose will do?”

“They may be,” Connie said and the shadow that flickered over her features revealed how much it had cost her to leave them.

“We had to go,” Uncle Howard insisted, emotion thick in his voice. “We had to get you out. I can’t tell you what a relief it was when Mr. Wheeler got word to Wesley that you were alive. I thought—I knew I couldn’t fail you again, my boy.”

Guilt pinched at Asher’s insides. “You never failed me. I’m the one who—”

“Hush. None of that. What’s done is done.” Uncle Howard took him by the shoulders. “We’ve left that horrible place behind us so we could look to the future. And Redemption.”

A brief flicker of hope ignited and just as quickly expired in Asher’s chest. “Redemption? But that’s…” Another vampire-run town. Another nest crawling with vipers.

“Their laws are different,” Uncle Howard said, his weary, care-worn features animated by the bright glow of conviction. “They treat our kind as family, not animals.”

That alone would make it a vast improvement on Sargasso, where all humans born within city limits were Ambrose’s property to dispense with as he chose. Knowing full well that blood ties were about all Sargasso’s populace had going for them, Ambrose seldom exercised his right to offer his loyal minions the gift of a human pet. Instead, he restricted himself to using those poor, unfortunate souls who fetched up in Sargasso by accident.

Women like Octavian’s Angel Eyes came to town looking for work and fled in fear for their lives. Men were lured into service as Ambrose’s daytime guard dogs and, much like Connie’s former fiancé, came to believe in their patron and protector.

“The Red Horn Riders have been harassing Redemption for at least a fortnight,” Asher pointed out. “What’s to say we won’t fall prey to their attacks?”

“These.” Wesley held up one of only two pistols Connie had liberated from their packs. “I loaded ’em up with silver bullets myself. Cost me a fucking fortune, but they’ll be worth every penny if we run into those bastards.”

“Where did you get them?”

Wesley rolled his shoulders listlessly. “You think you’re the only one can make a good trade?”

“After you were taken,” Connie told Asher, her manner gentler than Wesley’s, “we had to scrap all the old plans. Abandon the hideouts and caches…”

“You thought I’d talk.” Somehow that discovery hit Asher harder than the roster of the dead.

Pity shone on Connie’s face. “We didn’t know… But yes, there was a chance that once they started torturing you—Asher, we don’t hold it against you. If any of us went through the same ordeal, I’m sure we’d say whatever we could to make it stop.”

But you weren’t. And neither was I.

Asher nodded, shoving the complicated memory of Halloran’s body against his to the back of his mind, where it wouldn’t interfere with revulsion.

 

* * * *

 

At dawn, they set off again.

Wesley took the lead and set a faster pace than Asher thought he could keep up with. Yet much to his surprise, Halloran’s stallion was far less content to be left at the rear of the herd this time.

He bounded forward and in a few short strides, he was giving Wesley’s black cow pony a run for its money.

Wind whipped Asher’s cheeks as they raced each other, sticking his lashes with tears and kindling something closer to joy than he had felt in better than a month. His last time on horseback, Asher had been Halloran’s prisoner, transported from one vampire nest to the other. It had barely been a month. It felt much longer.

He felt like a different man.

Canyon gave way to valley on its far side. Another mountainous ridge loomed to the west, sketched beneath the clear blue skies in a foggy blur. In the middle distance, Redemption resolved itself into the solid palisade of a surrounding wooden wall. There were no rooftops high enough to peer out across the valley, no winding rail tracks feeding into the heart of town.

Asher had been to Redemption before—a few times, on Uncle Howard’s errands, the last time to put in place his own hare-brained scheme—but he had never spent more than a night there. He’d never taken much notice of the men that patrolled its square, armed and dangerous, nor felt a quiver of fear at the long, lingering stares that greeted his arrival.

Redemption was a changed place, warier than he remembered.

Horses safely hitched to the post outside the town’s one and only chapel, Asher took his uncle’s elbow. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

Uncle Howard glanced to where Connie and Wesley had all but made their way to the saloon. “My boy, what other idea is there?”

“I don’t know, but…” Something doesn’t feel right.

They were being watched, and not with vague curiosity, either. The more Asher thought about it, the more certain he felt that the spikes that surrounded the town hadn’t been there on his last visit.

“Perhaps we ought to say we’re just passing through before we commit to anything.”

“If you wish.” Uncle Howard made it sound like a great concession.

Maybe he was right. No one came at them with cocked pistols as they crossed the square. No one barred the saloon door. Inside, the bar was every bit as dusty as Romero’s, though the figure fetching drinks was a young man.

“Howdy. What can I get you, sirs? Ma’am,” he added, with an incline of the head toward Connie.

“An answer, first,” said Connie, leaning her elbows against the bar. “Where might we find the mayor of your fine town?”

A bone-deep shudder skittered through Asher. The sense of déjà-vu shook him. He’d been sat in a saloon much like this one when Halloran came to inquire after Ambrose. He’d been just as fearfully optimistic then.

Had he learned nothing?

The barkeep cocked his head, glancing from Connie to Wesley, at her side, to Uncle Howard and Asher standing a few steps back. “What might you want with him?”

The saloon had grown so still that Asher thought he could hear every breath in the joint.

Every breath but one.

Connie shifted her weight from foot to foot and, stealing a quick glance at Wesley, said, “We’re hopin’ to have a talk with him. About maybe findin’ lodgings in Redemption.”

“Where did you folks say you were from?”

“Connie,” Asher bit out, but it was too late.

“Sargasso,” she said. “Do you know it?”

The barkeep grinned. “Oh, yes.” His lips parted, stretched by a vaguely predatory smirk until they revealed a pair of sharp, gleaming white fangs. “I know it well.”