Chapter Twelve

 

 

 

Crows circled overhead, their black wings carving narrow crescents into the backdrop of an indigo sky. Their swooping and diving almost made it seem as if they were waiting for Asher’s fire to die out before they descended for the feast.

Shivering, he snapped another desiccated twig in half and fed it to the blaze. His supply had all but run out. The flames barely offered enough heat to warm his freezing toes.

It would be a miracle if he made it till morning.

Probably won’t. Probably have a better shot of become bird feed by then.

Asher pulled his blanket tighter around his shoulders. He never should’ve stopped running. The vast red waste stretched out around him, interminable and daunting, and yet a part of him still clung to the stubborn conviction that salvation lay somewhere out there.

It certainly wasn’t here, in the corner of no man’s land in which he’d made camp.

His eyes stung from the firelight. He closed them and tried to think himself elsewhere. How had he gotten here? How had he lost sight of Connie and Uncle Howard? When precisely had Wesley stolen his horse?

The crows calling to one another in the skies above made it hard to think.

“That’s one way to do it,” a familiar voice drawled from the shadows.

Startling, Asher nearly fell into the campfire in his haste to face his demon.

Halloran moved into the hazy, wavering light with slow, measured steps. The red dot of his cigar glowed brightly as he loomed over Asher. If he wanted to, he could have blown the smoke into his face.

“Decided this is the way you want to go, is it?” he asked instead, hitching his eyebrows in a show of interest.

Asher swallowed hard. “What are you doing here?”

“Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” Halloran clucked his tongue and resumed his pacing. His duster swayed with every step. The spurs on his boots scraped the ground, jangling as he circled all the way to the other side of the campfire. “You’ve an uncanny ability to make a mess of things, you know that?”

“It’s been said.”

Halloran snorted and blew out a puff of smoke into the cool evening air. “Ambrose is furious. He nearly sent out a search party to bring you back.”

“Why didn’t he?”

“Domestic troubles.”

“So he just sent you.” Asher tightened his grip around the blanket draped over his shoulders. It didn’t do much to keep him warm, but at least it offered the illusion of protection from Halloran’s piercing brown eyes. Vulnerability was all in the mind, someone had once told him.

Someone who was now dead, incidentally.

“You don’t have any idea where you are, do you?” Halloran crouched down, cigar propped between two fingers. Firelight illuminated his angular face.

“Obviously.”

“Or how you got here?” he pressed.

“I ran away.”

Halloran arched his thick eyebrows. “All by yourself?”

“Yes.” Asher wasn’t about to be responsible for any more deaths.

“Stubborn little shit…” Halloran sighed. “Look around. Does any of this seem familiar to you?”

Asher gritted his teeth. “’Course it does. I grew up in this fucking valley.”

“In Sargasso.”

“You catch on quick,” he retorted. Between the crows, the icy night and Halloran having found him, chances were high he wouldn’t live long enough for impudence to cost him.

“So where is it?” Cigar clutched between two fingers, Halloran directed his gaze over the barren nothingness around them. “Where’s your beloved hometown?”

Between starlight and the reflective red rock, Asher could see for miles in every direction. He did recognize the scenery, bland and dismal as it was. He had seen it plenty of times as he wandered through Sargasso.

His campfire should have been the heart of town. Halloran should have had his back to Ambrose’s ugly mansion.

“It ain’t real,” Asher breathed. His heart skipped a beat. “None of this is real. You ain’t—”

“Oh, I’m here.”

“In my head?”

“In your blood.” Halloran rolled his eyes. “Or the other way around.”

The pinch of nerves in Asher’s chest threatened to suffocate him. “I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“As long as I’ve got your blood in my veins, I can see into your head.”

“Even when I’m awake?”

“No.”

“Oh.” Thank God. All the vicious, mortifying thoughts that routinely flitted through Asher’s mind were not meant for public consumption—let alone that of a vampire. Another puzzle piece slid into place. “You’ve been in my head every night for weeks?”

“Never needed to.”

“But you could.” The last time Asher had been so horrified he’d been made immobile and dumb at Ambrose’s get-together. How could he have spent his life among vampires and still know so little of their abilities?

“Focus,” Halloran grunted. “You can turn hysterical all you like once you wake up. Right now, you need to tell me where you are.”

Asher looked up, perplexed. “Why would I want to do that?”

Halloran’s aggravation made itself known with a growl. “We have small window to claim you were taken against your will, but it’s closing fast. Once it does, I won’t be able to help you.”

“I wasn’t.”

Firelight reflected in Halloran’s eyes, twin flames burnishing in the depths of his inky pupils. “You don’t say.”

“You can’t ask me to turn my friends in just so you’ll preserve your precious spot in Ambrose’s good graces.”

“Ah, that’s your source of confusion. You thought I was asking.”

Perhaps it was the cold sweeping over Asher so fiercely it allowed no other sensation to take seed. Perhaps it was that his dormant courage had chosen this moment to awaken. Whatever the reason, Asher didn’t look away beneath the weight of Halloran’s glower. Nor did he rise to the bait.

“Don’t be a fool. Wherever you are right now, it ain’t gonna be for long. Ambrose will send someone to bring you back.”

“And if he doesn’t,” Asher surmised, “you will?”

“You’re leaving me no choice.”

“Seems to me you’re the one holding all the cards. Ain’t no one forcing you to do anything you don’t wanna do… Only I can think of you’re doin’ Ambrose’s dirty work for him is ’cause you’re really hurtin’ for money.” Either that or Halloran was every bit as rotten as the rest of his kind.

His expression frozen in a sort of half scowl, as though astonishment had paralyzed his muscles, Halloran clucked his tongue. “You truly believe that.”

“I do,” said Asher, willing his voice not to waver. “And I’ll take my chances out here.”

“Then why aren’t you waking up?”

“What?”

“Asher, wake up!”

Halloran’s snarl slammed into Asher like a stick of dynamite, flattening him to the ground. But when his vision cleared, it wasn’t Halloran looming above him and it wasn’t the crow-pocked sky.

“You all right?” Connie asked. “You were talking in your sleep…”

Wooden walls and wooden roof resolved around Asher in swift order. The bedding under his hands was a far cry from the coarse wool blanket he’d clutched to his shoulders mere seconds before. His heart throbbed against his ribs.

It was just a dream. Nothing more. A dream of Halloran, sure, but harmless in every other way.

“Didn’t say anything good, did I?” Asher asked, mostly joking.

“Mostly mumbled some shit,” Wesley answered from across the room. He had found a perch in the window and when he wasn’t glaring at Asher, he was snatching glances through the lacy curtain into the street outside.

The hotel they’d been brought to was nicer than anything Sargasso had to offer. Brass-trimmed furnishings inspired a sense of wealth in the suite and the bed’s thick mattress had been effective in lulling Asher to sleep. Uncle Howard, presently dozing, seemed to have found the recliner by the window equally comfortable.

Asher righted himself as Connie backed off to give him room.

“How long was I out?”

“An hour or so.” Connie dropped gingerly to the edge of the bed. “No one came, though I heard footsteps on the landing.”

“You imagined ’em,” Wesley muttered.

Connie sighed. “He’s got his back up ’cause you were right.”

This was news to Asher. “How do you mean?” he asked, tugging a hand over his face to banish the last tendrils of sleep.

Halloran’s warm, gravelly voice would take longer to excise from memory.

“We shouldn’t have come here. Moreau’s just like the others.”

“We don’t know that,” Asher said. In an attempt to soothe, he reached for one of Connie’s hands and clasped it tightly in his. “Could be mayor’s just a bit put off to hear where we came from.”

“You don’t buy that.”

“’Course he doesn’t,” Wesley snapped. “We’ve been locked up for hours while some bloodsucker figures out what to do with us. Other than it being just another Tuesday for our Asher here, it ain’t exactly the safe haven we was hopin’ for, is it?”

“It’s not his fault—”

“Aw, shit,” Wesley groaned, steamrolling Connie’s attempt to speak up. “Here he comes.”

Asher and Connie hurried to join him in the window, but they could barely catch a glimpse of Redemption’s mayor before he disappeared under the porch roof. Moreau wasn’t alone, Asher noted, a beat before a curiously demure knock rang through the suite door.

Uncle Howard jolted awake at the sound, his glasses threatening to slip off his nose. “What—what’s happening?”

“Visitors,” Asher murmured under his breath. Then, a little louder, “Come in.”

The door swung open to reveal Moreau in the same brown shirt and pants he’d worn behind the saloon bar. With his wide, beaming grin, he looked no older than eighteen. No more menacing, either.

Vampires could be deceptive that way.

“So sorry for the suspense, ladies and gentlemen. Trust you find our hospitality acceptable so far?” he asked, tucking his thumbs into his suspenders.

“You’re very kind,” Asher managed tepidly.

“Mm… Of course, where you’re from, I suppose you’d have been locked in with the cattle.” Moreau sauntered deeper into the room, his coterie fanning out behind him.

Asher counted two familiar faces among the three Moreau had brought with him. He had seen the women at Ambrose’s, both decked out in taffeta and lace, their hair pinned with gleaming combs that caught the gaslight. Here they wore nondescript, rough-spun frocks with demure collars, hair bound into unassuming plaits which hung over their bony shoulders.

“Ah, yes. You must be wondering why my friends are here.” Moreau smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “While I’m tempted to keep you here and find out all I can about Sargasso’s defenses, I can’t deny my Christian duty. Y’all deserve a good night’s rest. And some food, by the looks of you. Victoria and Lucretia will take good care of you gentlemen. As for you, Miss…?”

“Pinkham,” Connie put in, voice a tad shaky.

“Miss Pinkham,” Moreau repeated, drawing out the second syllable. I’ve got every confidence you’ll find Ivan more than adequate company—”

“She ain’t going nowhere without one of us,” Wesley barked, caution thrown firmly to the wind.

Ivan arched his eyebrows, though his features remained otherwise perfectly immobile. He was a beanpole of a man with inky black hair shot with white, and a hook nose. He reminded Asher of no one so much as Malachi, provided Ambrose had waited another fifteen years to give him the bite and imparted a few punches beforehand.

“Ms. Pinkham will be perfectly safe with Ivan,” said Moreau, the smile gone from his plush lips.

Asher heard the warning in his voice. “We have your word?” He shushed Wesley’s noise of protest.

“Of course.” Moreau put out a hand. “If it makes you feel any better, you can spend the night in my lodgings. I live just across down the lane from Ivan’s.”

It had the allure of an offer, but Asher had spent enough time around vampires to know there was no such thing. Not for humans, anyway.

He nodded.

“Ms. Pinkham.” Ivan held out a skeletal hand.

Connie sucked in a breath and placed her palm in his. The last glimpse Asher had of her was just before she disappeared down the stairs, her features tense with apprehension. She would be careful. She’d survived puberty in Sargasso with her honor intact. If Asher had cause to worry for anyone, it was Wesley, who departed the suite with a mutinous scowl and an outright refusal to take Victoria’s arm.

Uncle Howard stole one final glance at Asher and tried to smile before Lucretia led him gently out the door. His lips couldn’t quite muster the effort.

“Don’t fret,” Moreau cooed. “You’ll see them in the morning.”

“Why couldn’t we stay together? We’d have made do with one bed—”

Moreau scoffed. “I’ve never heard anything more improper. No, no. In Redemption, we believe in doing things by the book. The sooner your friends find themselves a spouse, the better.”

His honeyed lilt was so palliative on Asher’s ears that he almost missed that final disclosure. “What?” He made to break off Moreau’s grip, but the vampire was faster and stronger.

“Oh, we’ll find you a girl too”—Moreau chuckled, his hand tight around Asher’s elbow—“in due course. But first I want to know everything there is about the Red Horn Riders.”