Archer's Lady: Bloodhounds, Book 3 (2 page)

At least he wouldn’t have to do that. “I brought ammunition for the newer rifles, and we can all work together to make more for the older ones.”

Cecil nodded. “Well, I’ll be grateful enough to have you here to keep the young bucks in line. They’re not a bad lot, but when the vampires took all the able-bodied men, those boys had to grow up fast and hard.”

There wasn’t much of a place for boys on the frontier, anyway, not this close to the creeping border between safety and the land of the dead. “Could I trouble you to show me to the saloon, Cecil?”

“Of course.” He tilted his head toward the far end of the street. “Not so far. The cook’s already laying out breakfast.”

Archer could have found it on his own, but he figured having a familiar face with him might make Grace Linwood relax a little. Let down her guard. “You mentioned the doctor’s daughter?” he asked as the old man fell into halting step beside him. “Diana?”

“Uh-huh.” A sound as noncommittal as his next words were evasive. “You’ll need a place to stay. There are a few unoccupied rooms in the saloon, since some of the ladies who used to work there have taken advantage of newly available properties.”

Maybe he mistrusted Archer’s motivations for asking. Little did the old man know that Archer was already distracted by the odd mix of defiance and vulnerability he’d glimpsed in Grace’s eyes. “Is there some reason you’re trying to distract me?”

Cecil’s brows drew together. “I reckon so. You want to let me get away with it a little longer? As a favor to a man who’d be better off sitting down sooner rather than later.”

Archer sighed. “Suit yourself, old timer.”

Cecil just grinned at him, an honest smile that wrinkled his worn face. “So tell me if you want to take a room in the saloon, or if you’d prefer a little more luxury.”

“Anything’s fine.” At one point, he’d have been happy to bunk down in the stables, but living at the bloodhound compound in Iron Creek had made him soft. “Anything with a bed, I mean.”

“The saloon, then.” He cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind sharing it with myself, the cook, a couple of orphans and Miss Linwood.”

The proximity could wind up being nothing short of torture, considering the sort of shape he’d detected beneath Grace’s sensible, modest clothing. “I’ll manage, Cecil.”

“Good, good.” He started to turn but hesitated. “Well, looks like the ladies will be joining us after all.”

An odd pressure tickled at the nape of Archer’s neck, and the hair on his arms stood on end. Another brunette stood with Grace outside the saloon, one dressed in men’s trousers and glaring at him.

It took him a moment and a glowering frown in return to realize what the strange feeling meant, and when it hit him, he growled at Cecil. “She’s a hound.”

Cecil slammed his hat onto his head with a grunt. “So much for distraction. Yes, the doctor’s girl is more of an honorary daughter than one by blood. He took her in and nursed her back to health after—”

The woman spoke, raising her voice to cover the distance. “I don’t need you to explain me to the gentleman, Cec. I ain’t a boil that won’t heal.”

“Be kind to me, pretty Diana. And to him. He’s had a shock, now, hasn’t he?”

“Don’t know.” She stepped off the plank porch in front of the saloon and crossed the space between them. “A moon-crazed bloodhound killed my husband, almost killed
me
, and now here I am. Is that shock enough for you?”

Archer spit in the dirt. “I’ve seen stranger things.” It wasn’t even a lie. Just look at Nate back in Iron Creek, half vampire and half hound. “Lots stranger, truth be told.”

Grace stepped up next to Diana. The confrontation had put a little steel in her spine, enough for her to glare at him. “She’s not a thing. And she’s kept most of us alive.”

“We all know that’s the truth, Grace,” Cecil said quickly, then held out an arm. “Diana, love, help me inside before Cook comes after me with her best skillet.”

“I meant no offense.” Archer swept off his hat. “Ma’am.”

“None taken.” Just like that, the hound dismissed him, favoring Cecil with her arm as they turned toward the saloon.

Grace clutched at her skirts, the tension back in her face. “I’m sorry,” she said stiffly. “No one was sure how you would react. Doc always seemed very determined to hide her from the Guild.”

As well he should have been. “The Guild would snatch her up and drag her back to New York in a heartbeat.”

Something fierce filled her eyes, a fire that gave lie to her modest exterior. “Will you be required to tell them?”

“Probably, not that it means I’m going to.” No, he’d tell Wilder, and Wilder would handle it.

“Thank you.” She seemed to realize she was gripping her dress hard enough to turn her knuckles white, and she released it quickly before smoothing out the wrinkles. “Shall we retire to the saloon?”

The town had one hell of a vampire problem—and their very own bloodhound. It didn’t matter that she was a woman. If she’d been properly trained… “How come your friend hasn’t cleaned out the vampires?”

“There are too many. Too scattered, and sometimes too far away. The one time she left to go hunting—” Grace’s throat worked as she swallowed hard. “More of us stay alive when she’s here to fight them.”

“If she couldn’t do it alone, chances are good I’ll need to wire back to Iron Creek for help myself.”

“More bloodhounds?”

She didn’t like the idea. Archer crossed his arms over his chest. “Yes, more bloodhounds.”

“And they’ll come?” Tension twisted into doubt, and that hint of vulnerability returned. “Forgive me for being uncertain, Archer, but most of us have come to believe we weren’t worth saving.”

“If we’d known—” No, too much. He couldn’t let on that perhaps the Guild had dragged its feet so long because of factors that had more to do with Archer than with Crystal Springs. “I wish we’d come sooner, Grace, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

“I wish you had as well.” She stepped wide of him, moving like a skittish creature wary of a predator. “If you follow me, Cook will find you something to break your fast. And you’ll need lodgings. Plenty of fine, comfortable homes have been abandoned by their owners.”

“I don’t need fine. The comfortable part will suffice.”

She snuck a peek at him, too fast for him to catch more than a glimpse of big blue eyes before she turned away, her steps echoing on the wooden walkway. “What will you need from us before you go about your business?”

He needed information, not the big eyes she kept giving him. “I’ll need to sit down with someone who can tell me exactly what’s happened over the last few months. Diana, probably.”

“Diana and Cecil know the particulars of the situation.” Two children pressed up against a window in the building adjacent to the saloon, staring at them with wide eyes as their noses left smudges on the glass. Grace lowered her voice. “But most anyone can tell you how it started, and how many we’ve lost. It’s not something any of us are likely to forget.”

He imagined not. “I might call on you for help. If there’s one person left people will listen to, it’s the schoolteacher. Some of the things I might suggest to deal with the situation here are liable to meet with…resistance.”

“They’ll listen.” It was a quiet, confident promise. The words that followed held a tart edge of humor. “Once I work past my own inevitable resistance.”

Oddly, Archer found himself certain she didn’t doubt his capabilities. “What’s the problem, Grace?”

Her chin lifted the tiniest bit. “It’s hard to know how to behave with a stranger who witnessed my most shameful moment.”

“I told you I’d forget it. Not much else I can do.”

“It’s still…” Her voice faded to a husky whisper as color tinged her cheeks. “I feel exposed, at my worst. I simply want you to know that I’m stronger than I look. I’ll do what needs doing, whether it shocks me or frightens me. I’ll do it.”

Damn him for a fool…but he believed her. “All right.”

The saloon entrance looked like it had once consisted of swinging half-doors, but they had been built up and sturdily reinforced, heavy enough to require a good tug to drag one open. “We try to gather here when there’s trouble,” Grace explained as she stepped inside. “Those willing to listen, in any case.”

“And those who won’t listen?”

“There aren’t as many as there once were.”

Meaning they’d been taken, or the once-stubborn had seen the light after a few raids. “Cecil and Diana. I want to talk to them after breakfast, and Diana and I may be going out later this morning.”

It was all he knew how to do—identify the problem at hand, learn as much as he could, and formulate a plan for dealing with it. The same way he’d dealt with things in his former life, and it worked just fine now too.

An obstacle was an obstacle, whether it was the walking dead or a bank vault.

Chapter Two

Diana knelt behind the scraggly brush just shy of the crest of the ridge. “Down there,” she murmured. “A couple of outcroppings they’ve shored up to use as camps. The bloodsuckers sleep while their ghouls stand guard.”

Archer carefully peered over the top of the rocks and down into the valley below. There was little cover closer to the cavelike structures, but they showed no outward sign of being occupied—no mounts tied outside, no cooking fires or camp supplies. “Have you tried taking them down? Making it a little harder for them to camp near the town?”

“Only about three times a month,” said the boy crouched on his other side. Jacob had the gangly limbs of a young man growing too fast for his body to keep up, but he moved quietly enough, even with a rifle slung across his back. “Thought about trying to bring the caves down on top of ’em, but we ain’t got explosives or nothing. Barely got enough bullets.”

It might be possible to bring them down without dynamite, but it would take planning. “When was the last strike?”

“Three days ago.” The boy’s face paled. “Miss Linwood begged old man Robertson to move closer to the rest of us, but he wouldn’t leave his house, on account of his wife having died there a few years back. They must’ve snatched him straight out of his bed.”

Fuck.
“And how close together?”

“Every week or two.” Diana scrubbed a hand over her face. “Sometimes, they’re in and gone before I can do anything. The rest of the time, I’m so outnumbered it’d be foolish to try.”

Jacob’s shoulders hunched. “They’re picking us off, a couple at a time.”

“We need to get down there.” Archer shifted his weight and stood. “If they’re reusing these spots, they might have left things behind. Something that can lead us to them.”

More than a little bit of awe filled Jacob’s eyes, the hero worship that had been simmering just beneath the surface since morning. Archer was just about to speak again when Diana uttered a sharp noise of warning and yanked him back down. “Jacob, hide!”

A flurry of activity below drew Archer’s attention. Ghouls, half a dozen of them, shuffling toward one of the outcroppings Diana had indicated. “Damn it, there could be some vampires bunked down there right now.”

Jacob swung his rifle off his back. “I could pick ’em off from here.”

Archer jerked him closer to the ground before he could work the bolt on his firearm. “They’ve got guns too, kid, and there ain’t enough cover up here.”

Diana glanced around. “No way to hit them head-on without exposure. Do you think we can flank them?”

Six ghouls. A three-on-one fight, if he didn’t count the kid. Still not terrible odds, assuming he and Diana could get close enough to engage before drawing fire. “We can circle around. Even if the ghouls wander off again, we’ll take out the bloodsuckers and lay a trap.”

“What about me?” Jacob asked, damn near shaking with eagerness.

Archer stifled a sigh. “Aim true, kid, and try not to shoot me in the ass.”

It was a good half-mile run the long way down the ridge and around the outcropping. Archer kept an eye out in case more guards had arrived, but there were only the six they’d seen when he crouched down behind a sizable cluster of broken rocks. “On three,” he whispered. “Jacob, you hunker down back here and pick them off when you get a clear shot.”

He didn’t wait for the boy to reply before counting off. He fired blindly as he rose, and a lucky bullet hit one of the ghouls in the leg. It screamed, a sound Diana echoed as she dove from behind the rocks.

Two ghouls moved at the same time, climbing carelessly over their prone partner. Both launched at Archer, mouths wide in soundless screams. He shot the first in the throat and knocked the other down with a swing of his rifle.

Snapping his neck was a mercy, one Archer offered without hesitation. In front of him, Diana tumbled another ghoul to the dirt before finishing him off with a knife. Two dead, a number that became three when one of Jacob’s bullets found its mark.

Diana sure the hell moved and fought like a hound. Archer left her to it and headed for the tiny cave, where one ghoul hung back, an unnatural sneer on his face.

“Leave,” he growled. The words echoed in Archer’s head, grating like fingernails on a blackboard, and he knew it wasn’t the ghoul speaking. His vampire master, the creature awakened but hiding in the shadowed lair.